THE  INDISPENSABLE  BOOK 


WALTER  W.  MOORE 


BS  538  .M66  1910 

Moore,  Walter  W.  1857-1926. 

The  indispensable  book 


APR  r'.9.  ] 


The  Indispensable  Book 


By    \ 

WALTER  W,  MOORE 

President  of  Union  Theological  Seminary, 
Richmond,   Virginia 


"  To  ike  Bible  men  will  return  because  they 
cannot  do  without  it.^' — Matthew  Arnold. 


New    York       Chicago       Toronto 

Fleming  H,   Revell  Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1910,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  No.  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


To  my  Mother 


FOREWORD 

SOME  of  the  matter  here  presented 
has  been  used  in  informal  addresses 
to  young  men,  and  is  now  published 
at  their  request,  together  with  considerable 
additions.  Many  striking  tributes  to  the 
Bible,  culled  from  writers  of  widely  diver- 
gent views,  have  been  woven  into  the  vari- 
ous chapters,  in  the  hope  that  they  may 
be  of  interest  and  value  more  especially  to 
younger  readers,  who  may  not  have  seen 
them  all  or  who  may  not  have  felt  the 
cumulative  force  of  them  when  arranged 
as  the  author  has  attempted  to  arrange 
them  here.  These  citations  are  so  numer- 
ous and  some  of  them  so  well  worth  re- 
ferring to  again  and  again  that,  notwith- 
standing the  brevity  of  the  booklet  and 
the  simplicity  of  its  plan,  it  has  been 
thought  worth  while  to  provide  it  with  a 

full  index. 

7 


8  Foreword 

What  is  said  about  the  Bible  in  schools  is 
tentative  and  will  doubtiess  be  wholly  un- 
satisfactory to  two  quite  antipodal  parties, 
but  it  is  given  in  the  hope  that  it  may  help 
to  impress  upon  our  people  the  great  im- 
portance and  growing  difficulty  of  this 
question  and  may  do  something  towards 
calling  forth  a  more  illuminating  discus- 
sion of  it  by  some  more  competent  writer. 


CONTENTS 


I.  The  Palladium 15 

Mythical  story  of  the  founding  of  Troy. — The 
heaven-sent  image  of  Pallas  on  which  the 
safety  of  the  city  depended. — Partial  parallel 
in  the  history  of  America. — It  too  was  founded 
with  prayer  for  God's  special  protection. — 
John  Richard  Green's  statement  of  the  relig- 
ious motive  which  actuated  the  first  settlers 
of  our  country. — Their  Palladium  was  not  a 
heaven-born  image  but  a  heaven-born  book. 
— If  that  book  is  preserved,  honoured  and 
obeyed,  their  work  as  nation-builders  will  en- 
dure.— But  if  it  is  ignored,  neglected  and 
lost,  the  republic  will  perish. — The  Bible  is 
the  only  guarantee  of  our  civilization,  charac- 
ter and  culture,  our  freedom,  prosperity  and 
power. — Impressive  statement  of  the  fact  by 
Daniel  Webster. — Ominous  failure  of  many  of 
our  people  to  recognize  the  relation  of  God's 
word  to  our  national  permanence  and  pros- 
perity.— Object  of  this  booklet  to  remind  its 
readers  of  the  indispensableness  of  the  Bible 
to  our  best  intellectual  culture,  to  the  conser- 
vation of  our  national  ideals,  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  vital  morality  and  benevolence,  and 
to  the  existence  of  a  true  spiritual  life. 

II.  The  Bible  and  Literary  Culture    .     19 

The  Bible  preeminent  both  as  Literature  of 
Knowledge  and  as  Literature  of  Power. — Un- 
equalled in  its  power  of  inspiring  and  fertiliz- 
ing the  mind. — Force  and  melody  of  the  Eng- 
lish Version. —  Its  creative  influence  on  the 
makers  of  English  Literature. — Poets,  essay- 

9 


J  o  Contents 


ists,  orators,  and  novelists  alike  indebted  to 
it:  Shakespeare,  Bacon,  Milton,  Tennyson, 
Browning,  Macaulay,  Stevenson,  Hawthorne, 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Burke,  Webster, 
Ruskin,  Froude,  Dickens,  Huxley. — Testi- 
monies to  its  excellence  as  a  model  of  style : 
Edwin  Arnold,  Hallam,  Coleridge,  Spofford, 
Saintsbury,  Charles  A.  Dana,  George  Henry 
Lewes,  Professor  Baldwin,  Dr.  Osier. — Sena- 
tor Beveridge  on  "  The  Bible  as  Good  Read- 
ing."— Lord  Macaulay  on  the  Bible  as  show- 
ing the  whole  extent  of  the  beauty  and 
power  of  our  language. — Astounding  igno- 
rance of  the  Bible  among  college  students,  as 
shown  by  the  experiments  reported  by  Presi- 
dent Thwing,  Professor  Phelps  and  others. — 
This  neglect  of  Scripture  an  incalculable  loss 
to  our  intellectual  life. — Authors  and  educa- 
tors testify  that,  quite  apart  from  its  ethical 
and  religious  value,  the  Bible  is  indispensable 
to  a  true  education :  Charles  Dudley  Warner, 
Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody,  Count  Tolstoy,  President 
Schurman. — Therefore  to  shut  this  Book  out 
of  the  schools  is  to  perpetrate  a  fraud  upon 
the  intellects  of  our  children. 

III.  The  Bible  and  National  Ideals    .     51 

Justice  Brewer  on  the  Bible  as  the  source  of 
American  ideals. — God's  ideal  for  Israel :  a 
kingdom  of  priests  and  an  holy  nation. — Not 
an  ideal  of  military  glory  or  material  wealth, 
but  of  personal  and  national  righteousness,  of 
spiritual  privilege  and  helpful  service  to  man- 
kind.— «'  All  kings  and  all  priests  "  :  the  germ 
of  civil  and  religious  liberty. — Oriental  idea 
of  government :  the  people  exist  for  the  glory 
of  the  ruler. — Our  idea  of  government:  the 
ruler  exists  for  the  good  of  the  people. — We 
learned  it  from  the  Bible. — It  was  this  Book 
which  reversed  the  oriental  theory  of  despot- 
ism, taught  the  dignity  of  man  as  man,  and 
gave  the  world  the  conception  of  a  common- 


Contents  1 1 


wealth. — The  uplifting  Old  Testament  re- 
frain about  "  the  people." — No  other  ancient 
literature  shows  such  concern  for  the  welfare 
of  the  common  people  and  the  dignity  and 
rights  of  the  poor. — The  form  of  government 
first  prescribed  by  Jehovah  for  Israel  was  not 
a  monarchy  but  a  republic. — It  embodied  the 
essentials  of  a  democratic  constitutional  gov- 
ernment :  representation,  civil  equality,  and 
a  written  constitution  to  which  the  whole  peo- 
ple gave  their  public  assent. — The  Hebrew 
commonwealth  was  the  mould  of  the  Amer- 
ican Republic. — Testimonies  to  the  Bible  as 
the  safeguard  of  popular  rights  and  the  public 
good  :  Thomas  H.  Huxley,  Andrew  Jackson, 
Ulysses  S.  Grant,  Thomas  Carlyle,  Queen  Vic- 
toria, Giuseppe  Garibaldi. 


IV.  The  Bible  in  Morals  and  Benevo- 
lence      64 

Testimonies  to  the  power  of  the  moral  teachings 
of  the  Bible  and  its  effects  in  human  society : 
Lord  Bacon,  President  Wayland,  William  J. 
Bryan,  Richard  S.  Storrs,  Charles  L.  Brace, 
— The  lands  in  which  the  Bible  is  best 
known  and  most  widely  circulated  have  en- 
joyed the  largest  measure  of  liberty  and  of 
public  and  private  morality. — Answer  to  the 
objection  that  it  has  obstructed  the  path  of 
pi-ogress,  hindered  the  advance  of  science  and 
kindled  the  fires  of  persecution. — We  must 
distinguish  between  the  characteristic  effects 
of  the  Bible  and  the  infirmities  and  faults  of 
the  men  and  organizations  which  at  times  have 
claimed  to  represent  its  teachings. — Its  results 
are  confessedly  incomplete. — Cavillers  at  de- 
tails should  take  a  steady  look  at  the  broad 
permanent  effects  of  Christianity  in  the  world. 
— And  picture  to  themselves  the  condition  of 
human  society  if  the  moral  principles  of  this 


12  Contents 

Book  were  universally  practiced. — May  not 
human  conduct  now  be  left  to  go  on  by  itself 
in  moral  evolution  without  any  further  direct 
influence  of  the   Bible  ? — Prince  Bismarck's 

answer The  objection  that  there  are  many 

good  men  who  do  not  profess  to  regulate  their 
conduct  by  the  teachings  of  Scripture. — Such 
non-Christian  moral  men  are  themselves  prod- 
ucts of  Christianity. — But  parasites  cannot 
survive  the  larger  organisms  on  which  they  de- 
pend.— Testimonies  of  Arthur  J.  Balfour, 
James  Russell  Lowell,  Thomas  Jefferson. 

V.   The  Bible  in  the  Schools     ...     78 

The  Book  which  promotes  the  best  mental  cul- 
ture, the  most  intelligent  citizenship,  and  the 
highest  moral  character  cannot  be  safely  shut 
out  of  our  schemes  of  education. — Persistent 
attempts  of  a  minority  of  our  people  to  exclude 
it  from  the  schools. — Violation  of  the  McDon- 
ogh  Trust  by  the  city  of  New  Orleans. — 
Roman  Catholic  opposition  to  the  use  of  the 
Bible  in  connection  with  the  public  schools. — 
Decision  of  the  supreme  court  of  Illinois. — 
Lord  Macaulay's  statement  that  the  chief 
object  of  the  Church  of  Rome  is  to  stunt  the 
growth  of  the  human  mind. — Some  Roman 
Catholic  citizens  do  not  endorse  the  antagonism 
of  the  priests  to  Bible-teaching. — Jewish  oppo- 
sition to  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  public 
schools. — Protest  of  the  convention  of  Ameri- 
can Rabbis. — Disraeli's  statement :  all  nations 
that  refuse  the  Cross  wither. — Impracticable 
to  exclude  the  Bible  from  schools  absolutely, 
because  it  is  interwoven  with  all  our  litera- 
ture.— Refusal  of  the  University  of  Toronto 
to  exclude  it,  on  the  ground  that  many  sub- 
jects cannot  be  properly  taught  without  it. — 
Enormous  increase  of  crime  since  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Bible  from  the  schools  began. — 
Testimony  of  Ambassador  Whitelaw  Reid,  of 
Judge  Grosscup. — Can  the  Bible  be  taught  in 


Contents  13 

connection  with  the  public  schools  without 
violating  the  principle  of  religious  liberty  ? — 
Protestants  have  the  right  to  say  what  their 
children  shall  be  taught,  but  not  to  require 
the  attendance  of  the  anti-Biblical  minority. — 
The  minority  may  provide  for  their  children 
whatever  instruction  they  desire,  but  they  shall 
not  prevent  the  majority  from  doing  the  same 
for  their  children. — Views  of  Professor  Huxley. 

VI.   The  Bible  and  Spiritual  Life    .    .     99 

Statements  of  Theodore  Parker,  Thomas  Car- 
lyle,  William  E.  Gladstone,  S.  T.  Coleridge, 
and  D.  L.  Moody  concerning  the  relation  of 
the  Bible  to  spiritual  life. — Other  books  have 
taught  many  of  the  virtues  enjoined  in  the 
Bible,  but  they  have  not  been  able  to  give 
spiritual  life. — No  vital  power  in  mere  moral 
precepts. — The  religion  of  the  Bible  more 
than  a  moral  system. — It  alone  enables  men 
to  attain  what  it  has  taught  them  to  prize  and 
desire. — It  is  not  a  dead  book  but  a  living 
word,  operative,  inworking,  power-producing. 
— Prof.  William  James  on  the  common  nucleus 
of  all  religious  creeds. — Its  two  parts :  an  un- 
easiness and  its  solution. — The  uneasiness : 
a  sense  that  there  is  something  wrong  about 
us. — The  solution  :  we  are  saved  from  the 
wrongness  by  making  proper  connection  with 
the  higher  powers. — But  the  Bible  alone  tells 
us  how  we  can  make  connection  with  the 
higher  powers. — It  alone  reveals  a  Redeemer, 
the  lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  sin. — It 
alone  presents  an  ideal  character  which  in- 
spires the  hearts  of  men  with  an  impassioned 
love,  and  which  is  thus  both  the  highest  pat- 
tern of  virtue  and  the  strongest  incentive  to 
its  practice. — Testimony  of  Lecky,  of  Brown- 
ing, of  Ewald,  of  Scott. — "  There  is  but  one 
Book." — Conclusion. 

Index in 


THE  PALLADIUM 

WE  read  in  the  mythology  of  the 
ancients  that,  after  the  building 
of  Troy,  the  founder  of  the  city 
prayed  that  the  place  might  be  taken  under 
the  special  protection  of  the  gods,  and  be- 
sought Jupiter  to  give  him  a  sign  that  his 
request  would  be  granted.  In  answer  to 
this  prayer,  so  the  story  runs,  there  fell 
from  heaven  that  night  a  wooden  image  of 
Pallas,  the  goddess  of  wisdom  and  war. 
The  people  of  Troy  took  this  Palladium,  as 
the  figure  was  called,  and  placed  it  in  their 
citadel,  fully  assured  that  if  it  remained 
there  the  town  would  be  invincible,  but  if 
it  were  lost  or  stolen,  some  great  disaster 
would  befall  them.  And  so  it  came  to  pass, 
when,  during  the  Greek  war  against  Troy, 
Diomedes  and  the  crafty  Ulysses  stole  the 

IS 


i6      The  Indispensable  Book 

Palladium  and  carried  it  away,  thus  bring- 
ing about  the  downfall  of  the  city. 

All  a  superstitious  fancy,  you  say,  and 
so  it  was ;  but  in  modern  times  and  in  our 
own  land  we  have  at  least  a  partial  paral- 
lel in  historic  fact.  The  foundations  of  this 
country  were  laid  by  our  fathers  in  the  fear 
of  God.  Many  of  them  indeed  came  from 
their  native  lands  to  these  shores  solely  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  liberty  to  worship 
God  according  to  their  own  understanding 
of  His  requirements.  As  Green  says  in 
his  "Short  History  of  the  English  People," 
"  They  were  driven  forth  from  their  father- 
land, not  by  earthly  want,  or  by  the  greed 
for  gold,  or  by  the  lust  of  adventure,  but 
by  the  fear  of  God  and  the  zeal  for  a  godly 
worship."  In  the  very  beginning  of  their 
work  in  the  New  World  they  prayed  that 
the  Almighty  would  have  this  country  un- 
der his  special  care.  Their  Palladium  was 
not  a  wooden  image,  but  an  inspired  book, 
a  precious  gift  of  God  which  had  indeed 


The  Palladium  17 

come  down  from  heaven  through  the  men 
whom  He  had  chosen  to  record  His  will ; 
and  this  book  these  early  settlers  and  pa- 
triots had  brought  with  them  from  beyond 
the  seas.  They  were  convinced  that  so 
long  as  this  Palladium  was  preserved,  so 
long  as  this  book  was  honoured,  so  long 
as  its  instructions  were  obeyed,  their  work 
as  nation-builders  would  endure ;  but  if 
this  word  of  God  were  ignored  or  neg- 
lected, the  commonwealth  would  perish. 
The  fathers  of  the  republic  were  right. 
The  only  guarantee  of  our  civilization  and 
character  and  culture,  our  freedom  and 
prosperity  and  power,  is  the  word  of  God. 
This  fact  has  been  clearly  recognized  and 
strongly  stated  by  many  of  the  ablest  of 
their  successors.  Thus,  for  instance,  Dan- 
iel Webster  said :  "  If  we  abide  by  the 
principles  taught  in  the  Bible  our  country 
will  go  on  to  prosper  ;  but  if  we  and  our 
posterity  neglect  its  instructions  and  au- 
thority, no  man  can  tell  how  sudden  a  cat- 


i8      The  Indispensable  Book 

astrophe  may  overwhelm  us  and  bury  all 
our  glory  in  profound  obscurity."  Now, 
however,  there  are  not  a  few  ominous  in- 
dications that  great  numbers  of  our  people 
fail  to  recognize  the  knowledge  of  God's 
word  and  obedience  to  its  precepts  as 
indispensable  conditions  of  the  perma- 
nence and  prosperity  of  our  nation.  It  is 
therefore  more  than  ever  important  to  re- 
mind ourselves  afresh  of  the  indispensa- 
bleness  of  the  Bible  to  everything  that 
constitutes  our  true  prosperity  and  suc- 
•^  cess — its  indispensableness  to  our  intelle<> 
^  tual  culture,  to  the  conservation  of  our  na- 
"  tional  ideals,  to  the  promotion  of  sound 
morality  and  true  benevolence,  and  to  the 
development  of  our  spiritual  life. 


II 

THE  BIBLE  AND  LITERARY  CULTURE 

THE  Bible  is  a  literary  necessity. 
It  is  indispensable  to  our  best  in- 
tellectual culture.  De  Quincey 
has  drawn  a  suggestive  distinction  be- 
tween the  literature  of  knowledge  and 
the  literature  of  power.  He  says  the 
function  of  the  first  is  to  teachy  the  function 
of  the  second  is  to  7nove.  The  first  is  a 
rudder,  the  second  is  an  oar  or  a  sail.  A 
cook-book  in  so  far  as  it  is  literature  at  all 
belongs  to  the  literature  of  knowledge. 
Milton's  **  Paradise  Lost "  belongs  to  the 
literature  of  power.  What  do  you  learn 
from  "Paradise  Lost"?  Nothing  at  all. 
What  do  you  learn  from  a  cook-book? 
Something  new,  something  you  did  not 
know  before  in  every  paragraph.  But 
you    would   not   for   that  reason  put  the 

19 


20      The  Indispensable  Book 

cook-book  on  a  higher  level  of  estimation 
than  the  great  epic.  What  you  owe  to 
Milton  is  not  any  knowledge.  What  you 
owe  is  power^  that  is  exercise  and  expan- 
sion to  your  own  latent  capacity  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  infinite. 

By  the  literature  of  knowledge,  then, 
De  Quincey  means  that  class  of  writings 
whose  sole  aim  is  to  convey  information, 
and  by  the  literature  of  power  he  means 
that  class  of  writings  the  object  of  which 
is  not  mainly  to  instruct  but  to  move  the 
feelings  and  to  give  pleasure,  such  as 
fiction  and  poetry.  But  the  distinction, 
while  suggestive,  is  not  absolutely  correct ; 
for,  as  De  Quincey  himself  says  in  a  note, 
a  great  proportion  of  books — history,  bi- 
ography, travels,  miscellaneous  essays,  etc., 
— do  not  belong  strictly  to  either  of  these 
two  classes.  Macaulay's  "History  of 
England,"  for  instance,  contains  a  vast 
amount  of  information,  but  it  is  not  its 
stores   of    information   only    which   have 


Literary  Culture  21 

attracted  to  it  millions  of  readers ;  it  is  its 
fascinating  style,  its  power  of  exciting  the 
emotions,  and  its  appeal  to  the  moral 
nature.*  The  Bible  also  belongs  to  both 
categories  in  a  still  higher  sense.  It  be- 
longs unquestionably  to  the  literature  of 
knowledge,  for  it  is  our  only  adequate 
source  of  information  concerning  the  most 
momentous  interests  of  mankind.  It  an- 
swers with  infallible  certainty  all  the  great 
questions  which  have  for  ages  agitated  the 
minds  of  men:  What  is  God?  What  is 
man  ?  What  are  the  conditions  of  de- 
liverance from  sin  and  acceptance  with 
God?  What  lies  beyond  the  grave? 
That  the  book  which  answers  these  tran- 
scendent  questions  belongs  to  the  litera- 
ture of  knowledge  is  too  obvious  for 
discussion.  It  is  no  less  clear  that  the 
Scriptures  belong  to  the  literature  of 
power,  and  that  here  too  they  occupy 
the  highest  place.     Not  only  for  variety, 

*  H.  J.  Nicoll,  "  Landmarks  of  English  Literature,"  p.  lo. 


22      The  Indispensable  Book 

interest  and  importance  of  matter,  but 
also  for  simplicity,  dignity  and  power  of 
style,  for  perfection  of  ethical  ideals,  and 
for  efficacy  of  impulse  to  righteousness, 
these  sixty-six  heaven-born  books  never 
have  had  and  never  will  have  a  peer  or 
rival  in  the  literature  of  the  world. 

Merely  as  literature,  therefore,  the  Bible 
is  to  the  last  degree  stimulating  and 
creative.  There  are  many  books  that  are 
mentally  quickening,  but  this  Book  is 
unique  in  the  measure  of  its  power  to 
arouse  and  energize  the  intellect.  **  Noth- 
ing else,"  says  Dr.  Theodore  L.  Cuyler, 
"  so  sinews  up  the  intellect,  so  clarifies  the 
perception,  so  enlarges  the  views,  so 
purifies  the  taste,  so  quickens  the  imagina- 
tion, strengthens  the  understanding,  and 
educates  the  whole  man.  The  humblest 
day  labourer  who  saturates  his  mind 
with  this  celestial  school-book  becomes  a 
superior  man  to  his  comrades — not  merely 
a  purer  man,  but  a  clearer-headed  man. 


Literary  Culture  23 

It  was  the  feeding  on  this  honey  from 
heaven  which  gave  to  the  Puritans  their 
wonderful  sagacity  as  well  as  their  uncon- 
querable loyalty  to  the  right.  Simply  as 
an  educator  the  Scriptures  ought  to  be 
read  in  every  schoolhouse,  and  there 
ought  to  be  a  chair  of  Bible  instruction  in 
every  college."  The  late  Dr.  Teunis 
Hamlin  says :  **  Follow  the  linked  logic 
of  St.  Paul,  the  glowing  fervour  of 
St.  John,  the  brilliant  fancy  of  the  Hebrew 
poets,  the  majestic  eloquence  of  Amos, 
Micah,  and  Isaiah,  especially  the  unap- 
proachable simplicity,  directness  and  pro- 
fundity of  Jesus,  and  you  will  have  such  a 
mental  awakening  as  neither  Homer  nor 
Virgil,  Plato  nor  Seneca,  Goethe  nor 
Shakespeare,  Macaulay  nor  Emerson  can 
ever  give."  "  It  is  impossible,"  says  the 
New  York  Evening  Post,  "  to  overestimate 
the  importance  of  the  Bible  as  a  promotive 
influence  in  English  literature." 

When  the  Bible  was  translated  into  the 


24      The  Indispensable  Book 

English  tongue  the  people  found  them- 
selves put  into  possession  of  a  most  noble 
and  original  literature ;  stirring  history 
and  romantic  adventure,  "  cosmical 
theories  and  priestly  injunctions,  pro- 
found metaphysics  and  pithy  proverbs, 
psalms  of  unrivalled  grandeur  and  pas- 
torals of  exquisite  loveliness,  parables 
fraught  with  solemn  meanings,  the  mourn- 
ful wisdom  of  the  preacher,  the  exultant 
faith  of  the  apostle,  the  matchless  elo- 
quence of  Job  and  Isaiah,  the  apocalyptic 
ecstasy  of  St.  John.  Great  consequences 
have  flowed  from  the  fact  that  the  first 
truly  popular  literature  in  England — the 
first  which  stirred  the  hearts  of  all  classes 
of  people,  filled  their  minds  with  ideal 
pictures  and  their  every-day  speech  with 
apt  and  telling  phrases — was  the  literature 
comprised  within  the  Bible.  The  superi- 
ority of  the  version  of  the  Bible  made  in 
the  reign  of  James  I.  over  all  other 
versions    is     generally    admitted.      The 


Literary  Culture  25 

sonorous  Latin  of  the  Vulgate  is  very 
grand,  but  in  sublimity  of  fervour  as  in 
the  unconscious  simplicity  of  strength,  it 
is  surpassed  by  the  English  version,  which 
is  scarcely  inferior  to  the  original,  while  it 
remains  to-day  and  will  remain  the  noblest 
monument  of  English  speech."  It  ap- 
peared just  at  the  time  when  it  was  able 
to  combine  with  unique  felicity  Saxon 
force  and  Latin  melody.  In  the  reign  of 
James  the  First,  **  the  glow  and  splendour 
of  the  Elizabethan  era  flung  a  robe  before 
the  advancing  steps  of  Scripture  more 
rare  and  splendid  than  that  which  Raleigh, 
in  the  story,  laid  at  the  feet  of  the  Virgin 
Queen."  John  Richard  Green,  the  his- 
torian, says  that  "as  a  mere  literary 
monument,  the  English  of  the  Bible  re- 
mains the  noblest  example  of  the  English 
tongue,  while  its  perpetual  use  made  it 
from  the  instant  of  its  appearance  the 
standard  of  our  language."  Dr.  Faber, 
Roman  Catholic  though  he  was,  paid  this 


26      The  Indispensable  Book 

exquisite  tribute  to  our  Protestant  Bible : 
*'  The  diction  of  the  English  Bible,  with  its 
simplicity,  its  dignity,  its  power,  its  happy 
turns  of  expression,  its  general  accuracy, 
the  music  of  its  cadences,  and  the  felicities 
of  its  rhythm,  is  the  consecrated  diction  of 
devotion  and  religious  instruction  for  all 
denominations  of  English-speaking  Chris- 
tians, God's  greatest  gift  to  the  many 
millions  of  Britain  and  America.  It  lives 
on  the  ear  like  music  that  can  never  be 
forgotten,  like  the  sound  of  church  bells 
which  the  convert  hardly  knows  how  to 
forego,  and  the  felicities  often  seem  to  be 
almost  things  rather  than  words.  It  is 
part  of  the  national  mind  and  the  anchor 
of  national  seriousness.  The  memory  of 
the  dead  passes  into  it.  The  potent 
traditions  of  childhood  are  stereotyped  in 
its  voices.  The  power  of  all  the  griefs  and 
trials  of  man's  life  are  hid  beneath  its 
words.  It  is  the  representation  of  his  best 
moments ;    and   all  that  there   has   been 


hiiterary  Culture  27 

about  him  of  soft  and  pure  and  penitent 
and  good  speaks  to  him  from  out  of  his 
Protestant  Bible.  It  is  his  sacred  thing 
which  doubt  has  never  dimmed  and  con- 
troversy never  soiled."  ^ 

In  view  of  these  characteristics  of  con- 
tent and  form  there  is  nothing  surprising 
in  Coleridge's  remark  that  "  to  give  the 
history  of  the  Bible  as  a  book  would  be 
little  else  than  to  relate  the  origin  or  first 
excitement  of  all  the  literature  we  possess. 
From  this  storehouse  of  literary  materials 
our  leading  writers  have  most  freely 
drawn."  In  all  the  long  list  of  English 
and  American  writers  whose  names  sur- 
vive there  is  not  one  whose  pages  are  not 
sprinkled  with  the  words  and  figures  of 
Holy  Writ.  Emerson,  speaking  of  the 
Bible  as  the  most  original  book  in  the 
world,  and  affirming  that  it  came  out  of  a 

1  See  Faber's  essay  on  "  The  Characteristics  of  the  Lives 
of  the  Saints  "  prefixed  to  his  "  Life  of  St.  Francis  of  As- 
sisi." 


28      The  Indispensable  Book 

profounder  depth  of  thought  than  any 
other,  says  that  Shakespeare,  the  first  lit- 
erary genius  of  the  world,  leans  on  it.  In 
thirty-seven  of  his  plays  there  are  allusions 
to  the  Bible.  Prof.  J.  Scott  Clark,  in 
his  "  Study  of  English  Prose  Writers,"  says 
that  "  Bacon's  acquaintance  with  Holy 
Writ  is  almost  equal  to  that  of  Shake- 
speare, and  the  works  of  both  unite  with 
many  modern  masterpieces  in  testifying  to 
the  value  of  the  English  Bible  as  a  literary 
model."  Milton,  as  all  know,  is  saturated 
with  its  thought  and  diction.  **  I  have 
found,"  says  Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke,  "  more 
than  four  hundred  direct  references  to  the 
Bible  in  the  poems  of  Tennyson."  In 
Longfellow  there  are  almost  as  many. 
Browning's  "  Christmas  Eve  and  Easter 
Day,"  a  poem  of  about  twenty-five  hun- 
dred lines,  contains  one  hundred  and 
thirty  Scriptural  allusions.  They  abound 
also  in  his  other  poems,  even  those  whose 
subjects  are  not  closely  allied  to  Scriptural 


Literary  Culture  29 

themes.  Macaulay's  essays  are  full  of 
them.^  So  too  are  the  essays  of  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson.  Hawthorne,  the  great- 
est American  writer  of  fiction,  confesses 
that  the  Bible  and  the  **  Pilgrim's  Progress" 
(itself  a  product  of  the  Bible)  were  the 
main  sources  of  his  inspiration.  To 
Wordsworth,  "the  grand  storehouses  of 
enthusiastic  and  meditative  imagination 
.  .  .  are  the  prophetic  and  lyrical  parts  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures."  Coleridge  declares 
concerning  the  vigour  of  the  Biblical 
writers  that  "after  reading  Isaiah,  or  St. 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  Homer  and 
Virgil  are  disgustingly  tame  to  me,  and 
Milton  himself  barely  tolerable."  Milton's 
own  testimony  is  that  "There  are  no 
songs  to  be  compared  to  the  songs  of  Zion, 
no  orations  equal  to  those  of  the  prophets." 
Edmund  Burke,  the  greatest  philosophical 

1  See  two  articles  on  "Macaulay's  Use  of  Scripture  in  his 
Essays,"  by  R.  De  Witt  Mallary  in  "  The  Old  Testament 
Student,"  Vol.  VII,  pp.  212-216,  246-249. 


30      The  Indispensable  Book 

statesman  that  the  British  people  ever  pro- 
duced, made  a  habit  of  reading  a  chapter  in 
Isaiah  before  going  to  speak  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  "  Isaiah,"  he  says,  "  pos- 
sesses both  the  blaze  of  eloquence  and  the 
light  of  truth."  Of  Daniel  Webster  also 
it  is  authoritatively  stated  that  he  did  not 
think  himself  prepared  to  appear  before 
the  United  States  Senate  in  the  delivery 
of  his  immortal  orations  "  until  he  had 
taken  as  a  tonic  the  eighth  Psalm  and  the 
fortieth  chapter  of  Isaiah  ; "  and  Webster 
himself  said,  **  If  there  is  aught  of  eloquence 
in  me  it  is  because  I  learned  the  Scripture 
at  my  mother's  knee."  ^  Professor  Moul- 
ton  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  who  has 
made  the  literary  forms  of  Scripture  his 
specialty,  expresses  a  similar  estimate  of 
Biblical  oratory,  saying  that  he  once  read 
through  on  three  successive  days,  each  at 
a  single  sitting,  an  oration  of  Demosthenes, 

1 "  The  Fascination  of  the  Book,"  Edgar  Whitaker  "Work, 
p.  150. 


L,iterary  Culture  31 

one  of  Burke,  and  the  book  of  Deute- 
ronomy, and  he  had  the  feeling  at  the  time 
that  neither  of  the  other  two  rose  to  the 
oratorical  level  of  the  speeches  of  Moses. 

John  Ruskin,  the  supreme  master  of 
English  prose,  tells  us,  like  Webster,  that 
whatever  of  merit  or  power  there  is  in 
anything  that  he  has  written  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  when  he  was  a  child  his  mother 
made  him  thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
English  Bible.  Of  her  requiring  him  to 
learn  by  heart  certain  chapters  of  it,  he 
says,  **  I  count  it  very  confidently  the  most 
precious,  and,  on  the  whole,  the  one 
essential  part  of  all  my  education."  **  The 
Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature  " 
says  that  the  creations  of  the  greatest 
lyric  poets  of  the  Greeks,  when  placed  be- 
side the  lyrics  of  the  Hebrews,  suffer  in  the 
comparison.  Addison  speaks  of  Horace 
and  Pindar  as  showing,  when  compared 
with  the  Psalms,  **  an  absurdity  and  con- 
fusion   of    style"    and    "a    comparative 


32      The  Indispensable  Book 

poverty  of  imagination."  James  Anthony 
Froude  says  it  will  be  found  at  the  last  that 
the  Book  of  Job  towers  above  all  the 
poetry  of  the  world.  Coleridge  calls  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  "  the  profoundest 
writing  in  existence."  Renan  pronounces 
the  Gospel  of  Luke  "  the  most  beautiful 
book  in  the  world."  Charles  Dickens, 
master  of  pathos,  when  asked  to  name  the 
most  touching  story  in  the  literature  of  the 
world,  answered  immediately,  "The  par- 
able of  the  prodigal  son."  Coleridge,  who 
ranged  the  whole  province  of  letters,  when 
asked  to  name  the  richest  passage  in  all 
literature,  answered,  "The  Beatitudes." 
Even  Huxley  testifies  to  the  preeminence 
of  the  Bible  in  literary  culture.  "  Con- 
sider," he  says,  "  the  great  historical  fact 
that,  for  three  centuries,  this  book  has  been 
woven  into  the  life  of  all  that  is  best  and 
noblest  in  English  history  ;  that  it  has  be- 
come the  national  epic  of  Britain,  and  is  as 
familiar  to  noble  and  simple,  from  John-o'- 


Literary  Culture  33 

Groat's  house  to  Land's  End,  as  Dante  and 
Tasso  once  were  to  the  ItaUans  ;  that  it  is 
written  in  the  noblest  and  purest  English, 
and  abounds  in  exquisite  beauties  of  pure 
literary  form  ;  and  finally,  that  it  forbids 
the  veriest  hind  who  never  left  his  village 
to  be  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  other 
countries  and  other  civilizations,  and  of  a 
great  past  stretching  back  to  the  furthest 
limits  of  the  oldest  civilizations  of  the 
world."  ^ 

Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  author  of  the  *'  Light 
of  Asia,"  says :  **  In  response  to  the  query. 
What  do  I  owe  to  the  Bible?  my  short 
reply  would  be  everything  ;  my  long  reply, 
to  be  sufficiently  serious  and  comprehen- 
sive, would  run  to  reams  of  paper.  But,  if 
I  am  addressed  as  a  man  of  letters,  I 
would  simply  say  that  I  owe  my  education 
as  a  writer  more  to  the  Bible  than  to  any 
other  hundred  books  that  could  be 
named."     "  Its  style,"   says  Hallam,  "  is 

1  «•  Critiques  and  Addresses,"  Thomas  Huxley,  p.  51. 


34     The  Indispensable  Book 

the  perfection  of  our  English  language."  ^ 
Hence  Coleridge's  remark  that  "intense 
study  of  the  Bible  will  keep  any  writer 
from  being  vulgar  in  point  of  style."  Dr. 
Spofford  of  the  Congressional  Library,  in 
a  recent  address  at  Richmond  on  "  The 
World  of  Books,"  said  that  *'the  Bible, 
considered  merely  as  literature,  without 
any  regard  to  its  doctrines,  has  more 
strong,  nervous  English,  more  pathos,  more 
sublimity,  more  pith  and  power,  than  any 
other  work  in  our  language."  Professor 
Saintsbury  says  more  broadly  still  that  it 
is  "  the  greatest  prose  work  in  any  lan- 
guage." 

The  study  of  the  Bible  is  no  less  neces- 
sary for  the  mastery  of  the  direct  and 
practical  style  of  the  journalist  than  for  the 
mastery  of  the  more  deliberate  and 
elaborate  style  of  the  author.     Charles  A. 

*  See  a  valuable  essay  on  "  The  Authorized  Version  and 
Its  Influence,"  by  Prof.  Albert  S.  Cook  of  Yale  in  "  The 
Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,"  Vol.  IV. 


Literary  Culture  35 

Dana,  the  veteran  editor  of  the  New  York 
Sun  and  a  master  of  his  craft,  addressing 
prospective  journalists,  used  these  words : 
"  There  are  some  books  that  are  absolutely 
indispensable  to  the  kind  of  education  that 
we  are  contemplating  and  to  the  profes- 
sion that  we  are  considering ;  and  of  all 
these  the  most  indispensable,  the  most  use- 
ful, the  one  whose  knowledge  is  most  ef- 
fective, is  the  Bible.  There  is  no  book 
from  which  more  valuable  lessons  can  be 
learned.  I  am  considering  it  now,  not  as 
a  religious  book,  but  as  a  manual  of 
utility,  of  professional  preparation  and 
professional  use  for  a  journalist.  There  is, 
perhaps,  no  book  whose  style  is  more  sug- 
gestive and  more  instructive,  from  which 
you  learn  more  directly  that  sublime 
simplicity  which  never  exaggerates,  which 
recounts  the  greatest  events  with  solemnity, 
of  course,  but  without  sentimentality  or  af- 
fectation— none  which  you  open  with  such 
confidence  and  lay  down  with  such  rever- 


36      The  Indispensable  Book 

ence :  there  is  no  book  like  the  Bible."  It 
is  worthy  of  notice  in  this  connection  that 
in  his  "  Principles  of  Success  in  Litera- 
ture "  George  Henry  Lewes  commends  to 
the  student  "the  masterly  plainness  of 
Genesis,"  and  that  Dr.  Charles  Sears  Bald- 
win, Assistant  Professor  of  Rhetoric  at 
Yale  University,  has  given  to  a  little 
volume  recently  published  the  significant 
title,  **  How  to  Write — a  Handbook  Based 
on  the  English  Bible."  Dr.  William  Osier, 
the  eminent  diagnostician,  whose  command 
of  excellent  English  is  no  less  remarkable 
than  his  skill  in  his  own  profession,  is  a 
good  illustration  of  the  influence  of  the 
Bible  upon  the  speech  of  the  best  type  of 
present  day  orators.  His  Harvard  lecture 
on  **  Science  and  Immortality,"  though  not 
concerned  with  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel 
in  regard  to  the  future  life,  is  nevertheless 
full  of  the  Bible.  "  Its  forty-three  small 
pages  contain  forty-one  Biblical  allusions 
and  quotations,"  and  on  one  of  these  pages 


Literary  Culture  37 

seven  Scriptural  expressions  are  made  use 
of  in  close  succession/ 

The  Hon.  Albert  J.  Beveridge,  at 
present  a  United  States  Senator  from 
Indiana,  has  recently  published  a  little 
booklet,  entitled  "  The  Bible  as  Good 
Reading,"  in  which  he  describes  an  expedi- 
tion made  by  himself  and  a  companion  to 
the  great  woods  of  the  North  when  they 
were  both  thoroughly  tired  by  their  year's 
work.  Up  the  streams  and  over  the  lakes 
they  went,  he  says,  and  "at  last  far  out 
from  the  path  of  even  canoe  voyagers,  on 
the  shores  of  a  lake  whose  name  is  Beauty, 
and  in  the  depths  of  a  forest  whose  name 
is  Noble,  by  a  mossy  spring  whose  name 
is  Delight,  they  swung  their  axes  and  built 
their  camp."  Nature  began  her  work ; 
they  slept  like  pieces  of  iron  and  ate  with 
the  appetite  of  the  primal  man ;  but  some- 

1  *«  Bible  Study  in  Relation  to  Modern  Literature,"  Mrs. 
Minnie  G.  Machen,  in  The  Union  Seminary  Magazine, 
Vol.  XVI,  p.  123. 


[' 


38      The  Indispensable  Book 

what  to  their  surprise  they  discovered  in  a 
day  or  two  that  their  minds  also  craved 
some  pabulum,  and  his  companion  said,  "  I 
want  something  to  read."  "  Well,"  replied 
Beveridge,  "  what's  the  matter  with  the 
magazines?"  The  answer  was,  **  I  have 
read  them  all."  **  Well,  what's  the  matter 
with  the  Bible?"  ''Oh,"  said  his  com- 
panion, "  I  don't  want  anything  dull !  " 
"  Why,  man,"  replied  the  senator,  *'  the 
Bible  has  more  good  reading  in  it  than  any 
book  I  know  of.  What  will  you  have — 
poetry,  adventure,  politics,  maxims,  ora- 
tory ?  for  they  are  all  here."  And  he  pro- 
duced the  Bible. 

Thus  occurred  the  first  Bible  reading  in 
the  woods.  After  it  was  over  his  compan- 
ion said,  **  Why,  I  never  knew  that  was  in 
the  Bible.  Let's  have  some  more  of  that 
to-morrow."  And  on  the  morrow  they  did 
have  more  of  it.  By  chance,  says  the  nar- 
rator, one  of  the  guides  was  near  and  he 
sat  down  and  listened.     The  next  day  all 


Literary  Culture  39 

the  guides  were  there.  The  day  after,  the 
reading  was  delayed  and  Indian  Charley 
modestly  suggested  :  **  Isn't  it  about  time 
to  have  some  more  of  that  there  Bible?" 
And  more  of  it  they  had.  This  continued 
day  in  and  day  out  through  the  long  vaca- 
tion in  the  woods  and  thus  another  group 
of  men  discovered  that  there  is  more  good 
reading  in  the  Bible  than  in  all  the  volumes 
of  fiction,  poetry  and  philosophy  put  to- 
gether. The  writer  proceeds  to  show  that 
this  conclusion  is  natural  enough  ;  that  this 
book  has  not  held  its  sway  over  the 
human  mind  for  two  thousand  years  with- 
out having  engaging  qualities,  something 
which  appeals  to  our  "  human  interest." 
Surely  the  Old  Testament,  which  is  a  story 
of  the  most  masterful  and  persistent  peo- 
ple who  ever  lived,  cannot  help  overflow- 
ing with  everything  human ;  and  surely 
*•  The  New  Testament,  which  is  the  ac- 
count of  the  Man  who  dominates  all 
Christendom  to-day,  the  Man  who  is  the 


40      The  Indispensable  Book 

most  powerful  influence  in  civilization  two 
thousand  years  after  He  has  passed  from 
earth ;  surely  such  an  account  could 
not  be  without  a  fascination  compared 
wdth  which  our  most  thrilling  novels 
and  most  passionate  poems  are  vapid  and 
tame." 

For  the  detailed  proof  of  his  proposition 
which  Senator  Beveridge  gives  the  reader 
must  be  referred  to  the  booklet  itself  with 
its  successive  chapters  on  Old  Testament 
Short  Stories ;  New  Testament  Short 
Stories ;  The  Bible  and  Common  Sense ; 
Moses  the  Lawgiver  ;  Joseph  the  Dreamer ; 
St.  Paul,  Orator  and  Missionary  ;  and  the 
rest. 

Lord  Macaulay,  whose  judgment  on 
such  a  matter  no  informed  man  will  lightly 
question,  speaks  of  "  that  stupendous  work, 
the  English  Bible, — a  book  which  if  every- 
thing else  in  our  language  should  perish 
would  alone  suffice  to  show  the  whole  ex- 
tent of  its  beauty  and  power." 


Ljiterary  Culture  41 

Such  testimonies  and  facts  might  be 
multiplied  indefinitely.  They  are  so  nu- 
merous and  so  convincing  that  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Bible  as  literature  and  its 
unequalled  power  of  inspiring  and  fertiliz- 
ing the  mind  would  scarcely  need  to  be  re- 
ferred to  further  but  for  another  set  of  facts 
represented  by  the  disheartening  statistics 
published  not  long  ago  by  President 
Thwing  in  regard  to  the  astounding  ig- 
norance of  the  Scriptures  displayed  by 
certain  bodies  of  college  students,  in  one 
of  the  most  prosperous  and  progressive 
parts  of  our  country,  when  examined  as  to 
the  meaning  of  various  allusions  in  the 
greatest  and  most  popular  of  contemporary 
poets  to  some  of  the  most  familiar  incidents 
of  Biblical  history.  Twenty-two  quota- 
tions from  Tennyson's  poems,  containing 
references  to  the  commonest  passages  of 
Scripture,  were  given  to  a  body  of  young 
college  men  and  a  body  of  young  college 
women,  and  they  were  asked  to  explain 


42      The  Indispensable  Book 

these  allusions.  They  evinced  almost  in- 
credible ignorance.  Out  of  the  thirty-four 
men,  nine  failed  to  understand  the  quo- 
tation, **  My  sin  was  as  a  thorn  among  the 
thorns  that  girt  Thy  brow."  Eleven  had 
never  heard,  apparently,  of  the  "manna 
in  the  wilderness,"  nor  sixteen  of  the  "rock 
whence  issued  water."  Only  two  had 
ever  heard  of  the  shadow  turning  back  on 
the  dial  for  Hezekiah's  lengthening  life. 
Only  eight  had  ever  heard  of  **  Joshua's 
moon."  Twenty-two  did  not  know  who 
*'  Baal "  was.  Nineteen  had  never  read 
the  exquisite  idyl  of  "  Ruth,"  with  which 
Franklin  once  charmed  and  surprised  a 
company  of  learned  Frenchmen.  Eight- 
een did  not  know  what  "  Pharaoh's  dark- 
ness "  meant,  and  twenty-eight  knew  noth- 
ing of  "  Jonah's  gourd."  Only  nine  could 
explain  an  allusion  to  "  Lot's  wife." 
Twenty-three  could  not  understand  who 
"  Arimathean  Joseph "  was  ;  and  so  on 
throughout  the  entire  twenty-two  questions. 


Literary  Culture  43 

With  the  men,  only  forty-three  per  cent 
of  the  questions  were  answered  correctly ; 
and  with  the  women,  forty-nine  per  cent. 
Some  of  the  answers  were  positively  start- 
ling. One  young  woman  said  that  Joseph 
was  called  **  Arimathean  "  because  he  had 
a  coat  of  many  colours  before  being  sold 
by  his  brothers.  Another,  when  asked  to 
tell  who  Iscariot  was,  said  that  "  Iscariot 
means  the  cross  on  which  Christ  was  cru- 
cified." Yet  this  test  was  made  with  those 
lay  people  whose  knowledge  of  the  Bible 
would  presumably  be  most  ample.  The 
investigator,  in  calling  attention  to  the  dis- 
heartening result  of  his  experiment,  says  : 
"  To  the  Christian,  this  fact  is  significant, 
for  the  Bible  is  the  corner-stone  of  the 
Christian  system.  To  the  moralist,  this 
presentation  is  significant  as  evidence  that 
the  most  important  treatise  on  ethics  is 
not  adequately  known.  To  the  scholar,  it 
is  significant  as  standing  for  the  failure  of 
the  better  class  of  people  of  scholarly  en- 


44      Tf^^  Indispensable  Book 

vironment  to  know   the   most   important 
piece  of  literature." 

Similar  experiments  have  been  made  by 
other  investigators  with  equally  discourag- 
ing results.  "A  professor  of  English  lit- 
erature in  Amherst  College  stated  several 
years  ago  that  he  had  floored  an  entire 
Junior  class  by  a  reference  in  one  of  the 
poems  of  Dryden  to  the  blind  patriarch 
feeling  after  his  son's  hands.  In  a  large 
American  university  a  professor  of  litera- 
ture read  two  pages  from  an  English 
classic  containing  several  Biblical  allusions. 
Very  few  in  the  large  class  were  able  to 
detect  or  explain  such  references  as  the 
Valley  of  Dry  Bones,  the  Waters  of  Marah, 
and  the  Cave  of  Adullam.  A  professor  of 
philosophy  in  Northwestern  University 
made  a  test  with  one  hundred  students. 
He  asked  them  nine  simple  questions,  such 
as,  'What  is  the  Pentateuch?'  'Is  the 
Book  of  Jude  in  the  Old  or  New  Tes- 
tament ?  *      *  Name   one   of    the    judges.' 


Literary  Culture  45 

*  Give  one  of  the  Beatitudes.'  Out  of 
ninety-six  papers  returned  only  eight  gave 
correct  answers  to  all  the  questions. 
Over  half  could  not  locate  the  Book  of 
Jude.  Solomon,  Jeremiah,  Daniel,  and 
Leviticus  were  named  as  judges.  Mat- 
thew, Luke,  and  John  were  turned  into 
prophets,  while  Herod,  Ananias,  and 
Nebuchadnezzar  were  transformed  into 
Kings  of  Israel.  One  student  said  that  the 
Pentateuch  was  the  same  as  the  Gospel."  ^ 
Prof.  William  Lyon  Phelps,  who  oc- 
cupies a  chair  in  English  at  Yale  Uni- 
versity, gives  similar  testimony.  He  says, 
"The  ignorance  of  college  students  of 
Biblical  literature  is  universal,  profound 
and  complete.  The  students  at  Harvard 
and  Yale,  different  as  they  are  in  many 
respects  from  their  brothers  in  small  col- 
leges, resemble  them  closely  here.  .  .  . 
It  is   certainly   unfortunate  that  the  best 

1  "  The  Fascination  of  the  Book,"  Edgar  Whitaker  Work, 
p.  29. 


46     The  Indispensable  Book 

book  ever  printed  should  be  so  little 
known,  and  that  the  frequent  references  to 
it  in  practically  every  English  author 
should  be  meaningless."  Writing  in  the 
Yale  Alumni  Weekly  he  says :  "If  I 
were  appointed  a  committee  of  one  to 
regulate  the  much  debated  question  of 
college  examinations  in  English,  I  should 
erase  every  list  of  books  that  has  thus 
far  been  tried  or  suggested,  and  I  should 
confine  the  examination  wholly  to  the 
authorized  version  of  the  Bible."  Pro- 
fessor Phelps  is  mistaken  in  supposing 
that  the  students  of  all  the  other  colleges 
are  as  ignorant  of  the  Bible  as  he  says 
those  of  Yale  and  Harvard  are.  When 
his  statement  was  published,  Prof.  C. 
Alphonso  Smith,  then  of  the  University 
of  North  Carolina,  gave  to  his  students 
such  an  examination  as  Professor  Phelps 
proposed  as  a  test  of  their  knowledge  of 
the  factual  contents  of  Scripture,  and  the 
answers    he    received     proved    that    the 


Literary  Culture  47 

students  of  the  Carolina  institution  did 
have  a  fair  knowledge  of  them.  Doubtless 
the  same  thing  could  be  shown  of  the 
students  in  some  other  colleges.  Never- 
theless a  man  would  be  blind  indeed  who 
could  not  see  that  the  old  fashioned  famil- 
iarity with  Scripture  is  largely  a  thing  of 
the  past  in  nearly  every  part  of  our  land. 
How  serious  a  loss  this  is  to  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  great  masses  of  the 
people,  those  who  do  not  enjoy  the  ad- 
vantages of  liberal  culture  in  the  usual 
sense,  is  recognized  even  by  the  more 
thoughtful  unbelievers  of  our  time.  Thus 
Mr.  F.  J.  Gould,  a  leading  free-thinker  of 
England,  says  that  "  Millions  of  church- 
going  and  chapel-going  men  and  women 
are  shut  out  from  the  rich  resources  of  the 
classics,  of  general  oriental  legend,  and 
from  the  varied  treasures  of  Teutonic 
mythology,  European  folklore,  and  medi- 
aeval chronicles  and  poetry.  They  have 
no  imaginative  reservoir,  so  to  speak,  but 


48      The  Indispensable  Book 

the  Bible."  It  is  through  the  Bible  only 
that  such  people  attain  a  sympathetic  in- 
sight into  history.  *'  The  history  they 
learned  at  school  was  too  often  lifeless 
and  meaningless ;  but  in  the  Bible  they 
experience  a  combination  of  history  and 
moral  emotion.  In  its  pages  the  peasant 
and  the  ill-educated  housemother  gain 
glimpses  of  a  large  past,  of  kings,  judges, 
prophets,  patriarchs,  poets,  heroes,  and 
martyrs ;  and  of  glowing  landscapes  of 
the  East,  of  pyramids  and  temples,  of  the 
tents  of  Shem,  the  rose  of  Sharon,  and  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon.  I  should  profoundly 
distrust  any  rationalistic  analysis  which 
was  so  intent  on  liberating  the  proletarian 
soul  from  theological  bonds  that  it  care- 
lessly left  that  soul  without  a  popular  and 
easily  accessible  treasury  of  poetic  remi- 
niscence and  metaphor."  ^ 

Charles     Dudley     Warner     says     that 
"Wholly  apart   from   its  religious   or  its 

1  Literary  Digest^  March  18,  1905. 


Literary  Culture  49 

ethical  value,  the  Bible  is  the  one  book 
that  no  intelligent  person,  who  wishes  to 
come  into  contact  with  the  world  of 
thought  and  to  share  the  ideas  of  the 
great  minds  of  the  Christian  era,  can 
afford  to  be  ignorant  of." 

"  Our  Bible,"  says  Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody, 
"  is  still  the  key  to  the  best  English  dic- 
tion ;  and  by  conversance  with  it  our 
children  are  made  familiar  with  their  own 
language  in  a  purer  form  than  any  other 
which  can  be  placed  before  them."  Count 
Tolstoy  says  that  "  without  the  Bible  the 
education  of  the  child  in  the  present  state 
of  society  is  impossible."  President 
Schurman  of  Cornell  University,  who  can 
hardly  be  accused  of  any  partisan  interest 
in  the  Scriptures,  has  this  to  say  about 
the  relation  of  this  book  to  education : 
"The  Bible  is  the  most  important  doc- 
ument in  the  world's  history.  No  man 
can  be  wholly  uneducated  who  really 
knows  the  Bible,  nor  can  any  one  be  con- 


50      The  Indispensable  Book 

sidered    a    truly    educated    man   who  is 
ignorant  of  it." 

In  view  of  these  facts  and  testimonies 
the  inference  is  inevitable :  To  shut  such 
a  book  out  of  the  schools  where  the  chil- 
dren of  the  nation  are  educated  is  to  per- 
petrate a  palpable  fraud  upon  the  intellects 
of  the  rising  generation. 


Ill 

THE  BIBLE  AND  NATIONAL  IDEALS 

THE  late  Justice  David  J.  Brewer 
has  well  said  that  "  No  nation  is 
better  than  its  sacred  book.  In 
that  book  are  expressed  its  highest  ideals 
of  life,  and  no  nation  rises  above  those 
ideals.  No  nation  has  a  sacred  book  to 
be  compared  with  ours.  This  American 
nation  from  its  first  settlement  at  James- 
town to  the  present  hour  is  based  upon 
and  permeated  by  the  principles  of  the 
Bible.  The  more  this  Bible  enters  into 
our  national  life  the  grander  and  purer 
and  better  will  that  life  become." 

The  noblest  ideal  ever  set  before  a 
nation  was  that  which  God  placed  before 
the  Israelites  when  He  entered  into  cove- 
nant with  them  at  Mt.  Sinai.  It  was  ex- 
pressed in  these  words  :  **  Ye  shall  be  unto 

51 


52      The  Indispensable  Book 

Me  a  kingdom  of  priests  and  an  holy 
nation."  This  was  no  ideal  of  military 
glory  or  material  wealth,  such  as  most 
nations  have  striven  to  attain.  It  was  an 
ideal  of  personal  and  national  righteous- 
ness, of  spiritual  privilege  and  of  helpful 
service  to  mankind.  "  Ye  shall  be  unto 
Me  an  holy  nation " — there  was  God's 
requirement  of  righteousness.  "  Ye  shall 
be  unto  Me  a  kingdom  of  priests  " — that 
is,  as  the  construction  really  means,  a 
dynasty  of  persons  invested  with  royal 
rank  and  priestly  functions — there  was 
God's  appointment  of  Israel  to  religious 
privilege  and  religious  responsibility.  A 
priest  is  a  mediator  and  teacher  of  God's 
will. 

This  Magna  Charta  of  Israel  teaches  that 
God's  people  are  of  the  seed  royal,  all  of 
them.  It  teaches  not  only  that  all  are 
kings  but  also  that  all  are  priests.  Every 
man  may  be  face  to  face  with  God.  This 
passage,  then,  contains  the  germ  of  civil 


National  Ideals  53 

and  religious  liberty.  With  such  a  con- 
ception as  this — *'  All  kings  and  all  priests  " 
— fully  worked  out,  there  can  be  no  des- 
potism in  church  or  state. 

The  oriental  idea  of  government,  with  a 
single  shining  exception,  has  always  been 
this — that  the  people  existed  for  the  glory 
of  the  ruler ;  the  king  was  everything,  the 
people  nothing.  Our  idea  of  government 
is  entirely  different  from  this.  We  hold 
that,  so  far  from  the  people  existing  for  the 
glory  of  the  ruler,  the  ruler  exists  for  the 
good  of  the  people.  Where  did  we  get 
that  idea?  We  got  it  from  the  excep- 
tional case  just  referred  to,  from  the  He- 
brews, from  the  Bible,  from  God.  It  was 
He  who  first  insisted  upon  a  reversal  of  the 
oriental  theory  of  despotism  and  gave  to 
mankind  the  great  ideal  of  a  constitutional 
government  by  representatives  of  the  peo- 
ple. It  was  He  who  first  taught  the  dignity 
of  man  as  man  and  gave  to  the  world 
the  conception  of  a  commonwealth.     No 


54      The  Indispensable  Book 

student  of  comparative  history  can  fail  to 
be  impressed  with  the  world-wide  differ- 
ence between  the  pompous  inscriptions 
of  ancient  Egypt  and  Babylon  and  that 
simple  but  matchless  story  of  the  common 
people  which  runs  through  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Scriptures.  On  the  one  hand  we 
have  colossal  egotism,  high-sounding  titles, 
boastful  narrations  of  personal  prowess, 
elaborate  descriptions  of  royal  wealth  and 
splendour,  kings,  courts,  wars,  conquests, 
but  not  one  word  about  the  people,  save 
indeed  an  occasional  contemptuous  refer- 
ence to  the  "•  stinking  multitude."  On  the 
other  hand,  we  have  not  a  favoured  indi- 
vidual but  a  chosen  people,  not  a  pampered 
despot  but  a  royal  nation,  not  the  intrigues 
of  courts  and  the  exploits  of  kings  only, 
but  also  and  chiefly  the  every-day  life  of 
plain  people,  and  there  is  throughout  an 
unmistakable  respect  for  manhood  as  such, 
a  disregard  for  the  merely  outward  and 
accidental,  a  high  estimate  of  the  spiritual 


National  Ideals  55 

and  essential,  a  just  appreciation  of  per- 
sonal character  and  piety  regardless  of  the 
circumstances  of  birth  or  wealth  or  station. 

Observe  the  recurrence  of  that  uplifting 
refrain  throughout  the  Old  Testament : 
"  The  Lord's  portion  is  His  people  "  (Deut. 
xxxii.  9).  **  The  Lord  taketh  pleasure  in 
His  people  "  (Psa.  cxlix.  4).  "  The  Lord 
said  unto  Pharaoh,  thou  art  exalting  thy- 
self against  My  people"  (Ex.  ix.  17).  "  Let 
My  people  go  that  they  may  serve  Me" 
(Ex.  Vo  i).  "  If  thou  lend  money  to  any 
of  My  people  who  are  poor,  thou  shalt  not 
exact  interest  of  him "  (Ex.  xxii.  25). 
Little  wonder  that  Principal  Fairbairn  in 
an  address  to  working  men  should  affirm 
that  "  no  literature  of  antiquity  is  possessed 
with  so  deep  a  love  of  the  poor,  speaks  so 
strong  and  generous  words  concerning 
them,  surrounds  them  with  so  much  dig- 
nity and  so  many  rights  as  the  Old  Testa- 
ment." 

The  form  of  government  which  God  or- 


56      T^he  Indispensable  Book 

dained  for  the  Hebrews  was  not  a  mon- 
archy but  a  repubhc.  The  wise  sugges- 
tion of  Jethro  to  Moses  at  Mt.  Sinai,  when 
he  saw  how  the  great  leader  was  over- 
burdened with  administrative  duties,  was 
that  he  should  **  provide  out  of  all  the  peo- 
ple able  men,  such  as  fear  God,  men  of 
truth,  hating  unjust  gain,^  and  place  such 
over  them,  to  be  rulers  of  thousands, 
rulers  of  hundreds,  rulers  of  fifties,  and 
rulers  of  tens  ;  "  but,  in  carrying  out  the 
suggestion,  Moses  required  the  people  to 
elect  these  rulers  themselves,  saying,  "  Take 
you  wise  men,  and  understanding,  and 
known,  according  to  your  tribes,  and  I  will 
make  them  heads  over  you,"  ^  giving  them 
at  the  same  time  a  body  of  statutes  for  their 
guidance.  Here,  then,  a  thousand  years 
before  Plato  dreamed  of  his  ideal  republic, 
we  find  the  essential  principles  of  republi- 

*Ex.  xviii.  21 :  A  perfect  description  of  the  model  public 
man — able,  pious,  truthful,  incorruptible. 
'Deut.  i.  13. 


National  Ideals  57 

can  government :  The  principle  of  repre- 
sentation— "  Take  you  "  ;  the  principle  of 
civil  equality — **  out  of  all  the  people  "  ; 
and  a  written  constitution,  to  which  the 
whole  people  gave  their  public  assent. 

Algernon  Sidney,  who  gave  his  life  on 
the  scaffold  for  the  doctrine  that  a  people 
had  the  right  to  depose  an  unworthy 
sovereign,  and  whose  name  is  linked 
with  that  of  the  illustrious  Hampden  in  the 
title  of  a  Virginia  college  founded  in  the 
significant  year  1776,  wrote  a  work  en- 
titled "  Discourses  Concerning  Govern- 
ment "  which  became  the  chief  text-book  of 
the  founders  of  our  republic,^  and  in  which 
he  says  that  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  was 
composed  of  three  organisms,  besides  the 
magistrates  of  the  several  tribes  and  cities  : 
(i)  a  Chief  Magistrate  who  was  called  a 
judge  ;  (2)  a  Council  composed  of  elders  ; 
and  (3)  the  Great   Congregation  or  Gen- 

*  "  The  Origin  of  Republican  Form  of  Government  in  the 
United  States  of  America,"  Oscar  S.  Straus,  p.  113. 


58      The  Indispensable  Book 

eral  Assembly,  which  reflected  the  popular 
will.  These  were  the  germs  of  the  three 
organisms  of  our  American  Constitution, 
the  President,  the  Senate,  and  a  popular 
Chamber. 

When  the  Israelites  in  their  folly  in- 
sisted on  having  a  king  like  the  neighbour- 
ing nations,  God  permitted  it,  saying  to 
Samuel,  **  Hearken  unto  the  voice  of  the 
people  in  all  that  they  say  unto  thee ;  for 
they  have  not  rejected  thee,  but  they  have 
rejected  Me,  that  I  should  not  rule  over 
them."  ^  But  displeased  though  He  was, 
He  still  sought  to  save  them  from  the 
extreme  penalty  of  their  folly,  viz.,  an 
enslaving  and  grinding  despotism,  by 
warning  them  of  the  probable  character  of 
their  kings  and  the  probable  loss  of  their 
liberties ;  ^  and  when  they  refused  to 
hearken  and  still  clamoured  for  a  king,  He 
made  it  clear  in  the  anointing  of  Saul,  that 
He  wished  him  to  be  their  servant  and  not 

*  1  Sam.  viii.  7.  ^  \  Sam.  viii.  9-18. 


National  Ideals  59 

their  oppressor,  saying  to  Samuel,  '*  Anoint 
him  to  be  captain  over  My  people,  that  he 
may  save  My  people  out  of  the  hand  of 
their  enemies,"  ^  instituting  at  the  same 
time,  as  a  further  safeguard,  that  great 
order  of  the  prophets,  who  were  thence- 
forth the  spokesmen  for  the  people,  against 
the  tyranny  both  of  kings  and  priests. 

Dr.  Lyman  Abbot,  expressing  his  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  results  of  our  present 
methods  of  Sunday-school  teaching,  says 
he  would  like  to  know  how  many  children 
who  have  graduated  from  our  Sunday- 
schools  could  tell  anything  comprehen- 
sively about  the  Bible.  **  How  many  of 
them  have  any  comprehensive  conception 
of  its  political  teachings  ?  How  many  of 
them  know  that  the  Hebrew  common- 
wealth was  the  first  government  on  the 
face  of  the  globe  to  put  restrictions  upon 
the  absolute  power  of  a  monarchy,  the  first 
to  have  a  popular  legislative  assembly,  the 

1  X  Sam.  ix.  i6. 


6o      The  Indispensable  Book 

first  to  ask  for  the  judgment  of  the  people 
in  general  elections,  the  first  to  organize 
government  in  three  departments — legisla- 
tive, judicial  and  executive — the  first  to 
prohibit  class  or  caste  distinctions,  the  first 
to  make  any  provision  for  popular  instruc- 
tion ?  How  many  of  the  children  of  our 
Sunday-schools  know  the  simple  facts  of 
its  political  teaching  ?  And  yet  this  self- 
governing  republic  is  anchored  on  those 
great  fundamental  principles."  ^ 

The  late  Professor  Huxley,  agnostic 
though  he  was,  made  a  plea  for  the  use  of 
the  Bible  in  schools  in  these  words :  "  By 
the  study  of  what  other  book  could  chil- 
dren be  so  much  humanized  and  made  to 
feel  that  each  figure  in  that  vast  historical 
procession  fills,  like  themselves,  but  a 
momentary  space  in  the  intervals  between 
two  eternities  ;  and  earns  the  blessings  or 
the  curses  of  all  time,  according  to  its  ef- 
fort to  do  good  and  hate  evil,  even  as  they 

1  The  Outlook^  July  30,  19 10. 


National  Ideals  61 

also  are  earning  their  payment  for  their 
work.  The  Bible  has  been  the  Magna 
Charta  of  the  poor  and  the  oppressed. 
Down  to  modern  times  no  state  has  had  a 
constitution  in  which  the  interests  of  the 
people  are  so  largely  taken  into  account, 
in  which  the  duties  so  much  more  than  the 
privileges  of  rulers  are  insisted  on,  as  that 
drawn  up  for  Israel.  Nowhere  is  the 
fundamental  truth  that  the  welfare  of  the 
state  in  the  long  run  depends  on  the  wel- 
fare of  the  citizen,  so  strongly  laid  down."  ^ 
Andrew  Jackson  in  his  last  illness  declared 
this  book  to  be  **  the  rock  on  which  our 
republic  rests."  Ulysses  Grant  urged  our 
people  to  "  Hold  fast  to  the  Bible  as  the 
sheet  anchor  of  our  liberties,"  adding, 
"  Write  its  precepts  on  your  hearts  and 
practice  them  in  your  lives.  To  the  in- 
fluence of  this  book  we  are  indebted  for 
the  progress  made  in  true  civilization  and 
to  this  we  must  look  as  our  guide  in  the 

1  "  Critiques  and  Addresses,"  Thomas  Huxley* 


62      The  Indispensable  Book 

future."  Thomas  Carlyle  says :  **  The 
period  of  the  Reformation  was  a  judgment 
day  for  Europe,  when  all  the  nations  were 
presented  with  an  open  Bible,  and  all  the 
emancipation  of  heart  and  intellect  which 
an  open  Bible  involves.  England,  North 
Germany,  and  other  powers  accepted  the 
boon,  and  they  have  been  steadily  grow- 
ing in  national  greatness  and  moral  in- 
fluence ever  since.  France  rejected  it ; 
and  in  its  place  has  had  the  gospel  of 
Voltaire,  with  all  the  anarchy,  misery,  and 
bloodshed  of  those  ceaseless  revolutions  of 
which  that  gospel  is  the  parent."  There 
is  a  story  that  when  an  East  Indian  prince 
visited  the  late  Queen  Victoria  on  business 
of  state  and  asked  her  to  tell  him  the 
secret  of  England's  greatness  and  glory, 
she  simply  handed  him  a  copy  of  the  Bible 
with  the  words  :  **  This  is  the  secret  of 
England's  greatness."  To  the  same  effect 
Garibaldi,  the  Italian  liberator,  said  :  *'The 
best  of  allies  you  can  procure  for  us  is  the 


National  Ideals  63 

Bible.    That  will  bring  us  the  reality  of 
freedom." 

As  it  is  to  the  Bible  we  are  indebted  for 
the  existence  of  our  national  ideals  and  re- 
publican institutions,  so  to  the  Bible  we 
must  look  for  their  preservation  through- 
out the  future. 


IV 

THE  BIBLE  IN  MORALS  AND  BENEVO- 
LENCE 

LORD  BACON  says :  "  There  never 
was  found  in  any  age  of  the  world 
either  religion  or  law  that  did  so 
highly  exalt  the  public  good  as  the  Bible." 
**That  the  truths  of  the  Bible,"  says 
Dr.  Wayland,  late  President  of  Brown 
University,  "  have  the  power  of  awaken- 
ing an  intense  moral  feeling  in  man  under 
every  variety  of  character,  learned  or  ig- 
norant, civilized  or  savage  ;  that  they  make 
bad  men  good,  and  send  a  pulse  of  health- 
ful feeling  through  all  the  domestic,  civil, 
and  social  relations ;  that  they  teach  men 
to  love  right,  to  hate  wrong,  and  to  seek 
each  other's  welfare,  as  the  children  of  one 
common    Parent ;  that    they    control  the 

baleful  passions  of  the  human  heart,  and 

64 


In  Morals  and  Benevolence    65 

thus  make  men  proficient  in  the  science  of 
self-government ;  and,  finally,  that  they 
teach  him  to  aspire  after  a  conformity  to  a 
Being  of  infinite  holiness,  and  fill  him  with 
hopes  infinitely  more  purifying,  more  ex- 
alted, more  suited  to  his  nature,  than  any 
other  which  this  world  has  ever  known, 
are  facts  as  incontrovertible  as  the  laws  of 
philosophy  or  the  demonstrations  of  math- 
ematics." 

The  Honourable  William  Jennings 
Bryan  said  at  the  World's  Missionary 
Conference  in  Edinburgh  that  he  would 
stake  his  belief  in  the  Divinity  of  Christ  on 
what  had  been  accomplished  in  His  name 
in  the  last  1,900  years.  By  the  same  token 
the  Bible  is  a  Divine  Book.  It  has  been 
incomparably  the  most  potent  of  all  influ- 
ences in  purifying  and  elevating  the  race 
and  in  promoting  the  general  good  of  all 
classes  of  mankind.  A  summary  of  what  it 
has  accomplished  in  these  ways  may  be  seen 
in  such  works  as  Richard  S.  Storrs's  Lee- 


66      The  Indispensable  Book 

tures  on  *'  The  Divine  Origin  of  Christian- 
ity Indicated  by  its  Historical  Effects,"  and 
Charles  Loring  Brace's  **  Gesta  Christi,  or 
A  History  of  Humane  Progress  under 
Christianity."  It  tamed  and  transformed 
the  savage  and  sensual  life  of  the  Roman 
empire.  It  softened  and  civilized  the  fierce 
barbarians  who  conquered  Rome.  It 
covered  Europe  with  churches  and  schools 
and  asylums  and  hospitals.  It  taught  the 
necessity  of  temperance,  the  duty  of  per- 
sonal purity,  and  the  sacredness  of  mar- 
riage. It  revolutionized  the  legal  and 
social  position  of  woman.  It  abolished 
the  inhuman  custom  of  abandoning  unfor- 
tunate infants  and  set  a  new  value  on  the 
person  and  well-being  of  children.  It 
brought  to  an  end  innumerable  forms  of 
cruelty  and  oppression,  and  secured  the 
humane  treatment  of  the  weak,  the  poor, 
the  stranger,  the  prisoner,  and  even  the 
brute.  It  taught  the  duty  of  the  more  for- 
tunate classes  to  raise  up  the  unfortunate. 


In  Morals  and  Benevo knee    67 

It  stimulated  the  demand  for  an  equitable 
division  of  the  profits  of  labour  and  the 
friendly  cooperation  of  employers  and  em- 
ployees. It  taught  that  the  injury  of  one 
nation  is  the  injury  of  all.  It  mitigated 
the  horrors  of  wars  which  it  could  not  pre- 
vent. And  it  is  to-day  leading  the  van  in 
the  movement  to  substitute  arbitration  for 
the  sword  in  the  settlement  of  international 
disputes.  One  of  the  bishops  of  the  Eng- 
lish Church  proposes  this  simple  test :  **  I 
invite  any  honest-minded  man  to  look  at  a 
map  of  the  world  and  see  what  a  story 
that  map  tells.  Which  are  the  countries 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  at  this  moment 
where  there  is  the  greatest  amount  of  idol- 
atry, or  cruelty,  or  impurity,  or  misgov- 
ernment,  or  disregard  of  life,  liberty,  and 
truth  ?  Precisely  those  countries  where 
the  Bible  is  not  known.  Which  are  the 
Christian  countries,  so  called,  where  the 
greatest  quantity  of  ignorance,  supersti- 
tion, and  corruption  is  to  be  found  at  this 


68      The  Indispensable  Book 

moment?  The  countries  in  which  the 
Bible  is  a  forbidden  or  neglected  book, — 
such  countries  as  Spain  and  the  South 
American  States.  Which  are  the  coun- 
tries where  liberty  and  public  and  private 
morality  have  attained  the  highest  pitch  ? 
The  countries  where  the  Bible  is  free  to  all, 
like  England,  Scotland,  Germany,  and  the 
United  States.  Yes  !  when  you  know  how 
a  nation  deals  with  the  Bible  you  may 
know  what  that  nation  is." 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  has  not  the 
Bible  been  the  cause  of  much  evil  ?  Have 
not  those  who  claimed  to  represent  its 
teachings  obstructed  the  path  of  progress, 
and  hindered  the  advance  of  science,  and 
kindled  the  fires  of  persecution  ?  Yes,  un- 
doubtedly they  have  in  some  instances. 
But  to  infer  the  character  of  this  Book 
from  these  perversions  and  abuses  of  its 
teachings  would  be  to  repeat  the  error 
of  those  who  have  "  mistaken  the  gar- 
goyles,   the    grinning    stone    caricatures 


In  Morals  and  Benevolence    69 

mounting  their  guard  over  cathedrals,  for 
the  gleaming  statues  of  saints  within." 
We  must  distinguish  between  the  char- 
acteristic products  of  Christianity  on  the 
one  hand  and  what  is  common  to  human 
wickedness  or  human  infirmity  on  the 
other.  We  must  separate  the  special 
effects  of  Christianity,  the  necessary  fruits 
of  its  normal  operation,  from  the  blindness 
of  the  men  and  the  alien  and  insolent 
temper  of  the  organizations  which  at  times 
have  assumed  to  direct  the  propagation 
of  it.^  Its  results  are  confessedly  incom- 
plete. It  does  not  claim  to  have  enlight- 
ened, restrained  and  subdued  the  whole  of 
any  one  generation,  nor  even  the  whole  of 
any  one  body  of  its  professed  adherents. 
But,  considering  the  material  it  has  had 
to  work  upon  and  the  opposition  it  has 
had  to  encounter,  its  marvellous  though 
partial  success  in  the  past  is  the  strongest 

J "  The   Divine   Origin  of  Christianity  Indicated  by  its 
Historical  Effects,"  R.  S.  Storrs,  p.  27. 


70      The  Indispensable  Book 

proof  of  its  power ;  and  in  the  results 
which  it  has  already  accomplished  lies  the 
sure  prophecy  of  its  ultimate  universal 
triumph. 

Would  that  the  men  who  are  fumbling 
around  the  fringes  of  divine  revelation  and 
standing  aloof  from  the  vast  and  benefi- 
cent work  of  Christianity  because  forsooth 
they  do  not  know  what  to  make  of  geol- 
ogy and  the  Book  of  Genesis,  or  astron- 
omy and  the  Book  of  Joshua,  or  the  com- 
posite structure  of  the  Pentateuch,  or  the 
literary  form  of  the  Book  of  Jonah,  or  the 
authorship  of  the  last  twenty-seven  chap- 
ters of  Isaiah,  or  the  dates  of  the  synoptic 
Gospels — would  that  these  men  would  lift 
their  eyes  from  these  details  and  take  a 
clear  and  steady  look  at  the  broad,  perma- 
nent effects  of  Christianity  in  the  world  ! 
Would  that  the  men  of  this  sordid  age 
who  measure  everything  in  dollars  would 
picture  to  themselves  the  condition  of  a 
world  in  which  the  character  and  conduct 


In  Morals  and  Benevolence    7 1 

of  all  its  inhabitants  were  moulded  and 
controlled  by  the  moral  principles  of  this 
book  I  What  an  untold  saving  of  wealth 
would  result !  We  could  at  once  do  away 
with  all  the  vast  military  and  judicial  and 
reformatory  apparatus  by  which  the  na- 
tions now  seek  to  keep  themselves  in 
existence  and  in  order.  We  could  dismiss 
our  courts  of  law,  pull  down  our  jails  and 
penitentiaries,  and  never  spend  another 
dollar  in  the  erection  of  court-houses  and 
prisons  ;  there  would  be  no  violation  of 
law.  We  could  release  the  millions  of 
capital  invested  in  great  plants  for  the 
making  of  heavy  guns  and  armour  plate, 
and  cruisers  and  battle-ships,  and  all  the 
costly  up-keep  of  preparation  for  war,  and 
use  the  money,  not  for  maiming  and 
murdering  our  fellow  men,  but  for  lifting 
the  burden  of  pain  from  afflicted  humanity, 
and  easing  the  hard  lot  of  the  poor ;  the 
whole  world  would  be  at  peace.  Our 
hardware  merchants  would  go  out  of  the 


72      The  Indispensable  Book 

business  of  selling  locks  and  keys  ;  there 
would  be  no  occasion  for  that  kind  of 
protection  of  property.  Dishonesty  in 
business  and  corruption  in  politics  would 
be  unknown  and  the  hateful  word  "  graft " 
would  never  be  heard.  The  golden  rule 
would  regulate  all  domestic  and  social  and 
business  relations,  and  none  would  defraud 
or  deprave  or  destroy  in  the  whole  wide 
world.     God  hasten  the  day  I 

There  are  some,  however,  who,  while 
admitting  that  the  Bible  has  done  much 
to  elevate  human  conduct,  seem  to  think 
that  human  conduct  may  now  be  left  to  go 
on  by  itself  in  moral  evolution  without 
any  further  direct  influence  of  the  Bible  at 
all.  Does  the  ship  go  on  when  the  fires 
in  the  engine-room  are  put  out?  No 
more  will  human  conduct  go  on  when  the 
impulse  of  personal  relationship  to  God  is 
quenched.  "  When  the  fires  in  the  engine- 
room  are  put  out,  the  ship  swings  hither 
and  thither  in  the  trough  of  the  sea,  and  it 


In  Morals  and  Benevolence    73 

is  drifted  by  the  tide,  or  it  founders  in  the 
tempest ;  and  human  conduct  founders 
when  the  soul  of  man  is  bereft  of  God."  * 
Bismarck,  **  the  strongest  intellect  of  the 
nineteenth  century  in  Germany,"  said : 
"  How,  without  faith  in  a  revealed  religion, 
in  a  God  who  wills  what  is  good,  in  a  su- 
preme Judge,  and  a  future  life,  men  can 
live  harmoniously,  each  doing  his  duty, 
and  letting  every  one  else  do  his,  I  do  not 
understand." 

But,  says  the  objector,  are  there  not  in 
fact  thousands  of  good  citizens,  honest 
business  men,  charitable  neighbours,  faith- 
ful husbands,  and  loving  parents  who  do 
not  read  the  Bible  and  who  do  not  profess 
to  regulate  their  conduct  by  its  teachings  ? 
Undoubtedly  there  are,  but  these  cases 
are  individual  and  partial.  **  Try  your 
experiment  on  any  large  and  general 
scale,  and  you  will  find  that  the  loss  of 
God  means  ruin  to  character  and  conduct." 

1 "  The  Threshold  of  Manhood,"  W.  J.  Dawson,  p.  240. 


74      The  Indispensable  Book 

Witness  the  French  Revolution.  More- 
over, the  men  referred  to  are  themselves 
the  indirect  products  of  a  Biblical  moral- 
ity. These  lives  in  which  Christian  vir- 
tues appear  though  Christian  discipleship 
is  denied  are  lived  in  a  Christian  atmos- 
phere. As  ex-Prime  Minister  Balfour  says, 
they  are  like  the  parasite  which  lives  upon 
the  strength  and  in  virtue  of  the  life  of 
some  larger  being ;  and  if  the  life  on 
which  the  parasite  depends  should  cease 
then  the  parasite  also  will  die. 

Similar  to  this  is  the  testimony  of  James 
Russell  Lowell,  in  an  after-dinner  speech, 
following  a  noted  infidel :  *'  I  fear  that 
when  we  indulge  ourselves  in  the  amuse- 
ment of  going  without  a  religion,  we  are 
not,  perhaps,  aware  how  much  we  are 
sustained  at  present  by  an  enormous  mass 
all  about  us  of  religious  feeling  and  relig- 
ious conviction,  so  that,  whatever  it  may 
be  safe  for  us  to  think,  for  us  who  have  had 
great  advantages,  and  have  been  brought 


In  Morals  and  Benevolence    75 

up  in  such  a  way  that  a  certain  moral 
direction  has  been  given  to  our  character, 
I  do  not  know  what  would  become  of  the 
less  favoured  classes  of  mankind  if  they 
undertook  to  play  the  same  game. 

"  Whatever  defects  and  imperfections 
may  attach  to  a  few  points  of  the  doc- 
trinal system  of  Calvin — the  bulk  of 
which  is  simply  what  all  Christians 
believe — it  will  be  found  that  Calvin- 
ism, or  any  other  ism  which  claims  an 
open  Bible  and  proclaims  a  crucified  and 
risen  Christ,  is  infinitely  preferable  to  any 
form  of  polite  and  polished  skepticism 
which  gathers  as  its  votaries  the  degener- 
ate sons  of  heroic  ancestors,  who,  having 
been  trained  in  society  and  educated  in 
schools,  the  foundations  of  which  were  laid 
by  men  of  faith  and  piety,  now  turn  and 
kick  down  the  ladder  by  which  they  have 
climbed,  and  persuade  men  to  live  with- 
out God  and  leave  them  to  die  without  hope. 

"  The  worst  kind  of  religion  is  no  relig- 


76      The  Indispensable  Book 

ion  at  all,  and  these  men  living  in  ease 
and  luxury,  indulging  themselves  in  the 
amusement  of  going  without  religion,  may 
be  thankful  that  they  live  in  lands  where 
the  Gospel  they  neglect  has  tamed  the 
beastliness  and  ferocity  of  the  men  who, 
but  for  Christianity,  might  long  ago  have 
eaten  their  carcasses  like  the  South  Sea 
Islanders,  or  cut  off  their  heads  and  tanned 
their  hides  like  the  monsters  of  the  French 
Revolution. 

"  When  the  microscopic  search  of  skep- 
ticism, which  has  hunted  the  heavens  and 
sounded  the  seas  to  disprove  the  existence 
of  a  Creator,  has  turned  its  attention  to  hu- 
man society,  and  has  found  a  place  on  this 
planet  ten  miles  square  where  a  decent 
man  can  live  in  decency,  comfort  and  secur- 
ity, supporting  and  educating  his  children 
unspoiled  and  unpolluted  ;  a  place  where 
age  is  reverenced,  infancy  protected,  man- 
hood respected,  womanhood  honoured,  and 
human  life  held  in  due  regard  ;  when  skep- 


In  Morals  and  Benevolence    77 

tics  can  find  such  a  place  ten  miles  square 
on  this  globe,  where  the  Gospel  of  Christ  has 
not  gone  and  cleared  the  way,  and  laid  the 
foundations  and  made  decency  and  secur- 
ity possible,  it  will  then  be  in  order  for  the 
skeptical  literati  to  move  thither  and  there 
ventilate  their  views.  But  so  long  as  these 
very  men  are  dependent  upon  the  religion 
they  discard  for  every  privilege  they  en- 
joy, they  may  well  hesitate  a  little  before 
they  seek  to  rob  the  Christian  of  his  hope 
and  humanity  of  its  Saviour,  who  alone 
has  given  to  man  that  hope  of  life  eternal 
which  makes  life  tolerable  and  society  pos- 
sible, and  robs  death  of  its  terrors  and  the 
grave  of  its  gloom." 

Even  Thomas  Jefferson,  with  all  his 
skepticism  and  all  his  emasculation  of 
Scripture,  makes  this  emphatic  statement, 
**  I  always  have  said  and  always  will  say 
that  the  studious  perusal  of  the  sacred 
volume  will  make  better  citizens,  better 
fathers,  and  better  husbands.' ' 


THE  BIBLE  IN  THE  SCHOOLS 

IN  view  of  the  fact  that  this  Book  is  es- 
sential not  only  to  the  best  mental 
culture  of  our  children,  and  not  only 
to  their  training  in  the  truest  national 
ideals,  but  also  to  the  making  of  the  best 
type  of  moral  character,  which  is  the  real 
end  and  aim  of  all  true  education,  one  of 
the  strangest  and  most  discreditable  facts 
of  our  time,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most 
dangerous,  is  the  persistent  and  largely 
successful  effort  of  a  hostile  minority  of  the 
people  of  this  country  to  exclude  the  Bible 
from  the  schools  in  which  the  great  major- 
ity of  our  children  are  taught.  In  order  to 
secure  its  exclusion  from  schools  founded 
by  individual  benevolence,  these  enemies 
of  the  Bible  have  not  hesitated  to  violate 
the    most    sacred   trusts.     Nearly   half  a 

78 


In  the  Schools  79 

century  ago  John  McDonogh  left  a  large 
fortune  to  the  cities  of  Baltimore  and  New 
Orleans  for  the  purpose  of  instructing 
youth  **  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  and 
in  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  history, 
geography,  etc.,  under  such  regulations  as 
the  commissioners  of  said  schools  shall  es- 
tablish, always  understood  and  provided, 
however,  that  the  Holy  Bible  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  shall  be  at  all  times 
and  forever  made  use  of  in  those  schools 
as  one  (and  the  principal  one)  of  the  read- 
ing or  class  books  which  shall  be  used  by 
the  pupils  therein ;  as  the  first  object  of 
every  school  and  all  teaching  should  be  to 
implant  in  their  minds  a  knowledge  of 
their  duty  to  God  and  the  relations  of  men 
to  their  divine  Creator,  and  singing  classes 
shall  be  established  and  forever  supported, 
and  singing  taught  as  a  regular  branch  of 
such  schools,  which  means  that  each  pupil 
shall  acquire  the  rudiments  of  the  art,  and 
obtain    a    knowledge    of  singing  sacred 


8o      The  Indispensable  Book 

music."  While  Baltimore  is  faithful  to 
this  trust  and  is  using  her  part  of  the  be- 
quest as  provided  for  by  the  founder,  New 
Orleans  has  shamefully  violated  it  by 
keeping  the  Bible  out  of  the  schools  built 
with  her  benefactor's  money.  The  redis-  ' 
CO  very  of  the  original  will  last  year  (1909) 
in  the  rubbish  of  the  Cabildo,  where  it  had 
lain  hidden  for  forty  years  or  more,  accen- 
tuates the  city's  shame.  The  honour 
which  New  Orleans  pays  to  McDonogh's 
memory  once  a  year,  when  all  her  school 
children  march  around  his  monument  and 
cover  it  with  flowers,  only  deepens  and 
proclaims  her  own  dishonour. 

But  the  master-stroke  of  this  anti- 
Biblical  minority  for  the  accomplishment 
of  its  baleful  purpose  is  its  attempt  to  pre- 
vent the  Protestant  Christians  of  our  coun- 
try from  providing  any  instruction  in  the 
Bible  for  their  children  in  connection  with 
their  general  education  in  the  public 
schools.      The  interpretation   it  seeks  to 


In  the  Schools  81 

force  upon  our  principle  of  the  separation 
of  church  and  state  and  upon  the  deci- 
sions of  the  courts  forbidding  sectarian 
teaching  in  the  public  schools  is  that  not 
only  must  the  Bible  not  be  taught  in  the 
regular  curriculum  of  these  schools  to  all 
the  pupils  regardless  of  the  religious  faith 
of  their  parents,  which  we  readily  grant, 
but  that  it  must  not  be  taught  even  in 
connection  with  such  schools  by  any  in- 
structors, however  and  by  whomsoever 
they  may  be  appointed — that  it  must  not 
be  taught  even  to  those  children  whose 
parents  wish  it  done. 

Now,  we  believe  that  it  would  be  a 
violation  of  the  American  principle  of 
religious  liberty  for  the  state  to  require  the 
teaching  of  Christianity  in  the  common 
schools  and  to  compel  the  children  of  all 
its  citizens  to  attend  such  teaching.  It  is 
indeed  the  right  and  duty  of  the  state  to 
teach  morals  and  to  give  to  all  the  children 
in  its  schools  the  fullest  possible  teaching 


82      The  Indispensable  Book 

concerning  God  as  the  creator  and  moral 
governor  of  mankind.  But  the  state  has 
no  warrant  to  teach  evangelical  religion, 
to  inculcate  the  doctrines  of  grace,  to  ex- 
pound the  plan  of  salvation.  Therefore  it 
has  no  right  to  prescribe  the  teaching  of 
the  whole  Bible  as  a  book  of  religion  in 
the  pubHc  schools.  But  neither  has  it  the 
right  to  proscribe  it  in  such  a  way  as  to 
prevent  Christian  parents  from  having  the 
Bible  taught  to  their  children  in  connection 
with  their  general  education,  by  teachers 
of  their  own  appointment,  even  though 
some  of  these  teachers  might  be  instructors 
in  the  public  schools.  Yet  it  is  claimed  by 
the  opponents  of  the  Bible  that  this  is  the 
efTect  of  the  decisions  recently  made  by 
some  of  our  municipal  and  state  courts, 
and  one  cannot  doubt  that  it  was  the  re- 
sult aimed  at  by  those  who  procured  these 
decisions.  For  instance,  on  the  petition  of 
Roman  Catholic  residents  of  the  town  of 
Winchester,  Illinois,  the  Supreme  Court  of 


In  the  Schools  83 

that  state,  in  July,  19 10,  reversing  the 
action  of  a  lower  court,  declared  religious 
exercises  in  the  public  schools  unlawful, 
two  of  the  justices  dissenting  from  the 
decision.  The  exercises  to  be  suppressed 
under  the  court's  ruling  are  the  reading  of 
the  Bible,  the  recitation  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  and  the  singing  of  hymns.  By 
some,  as  already  stated,  this  decision  is  in- 
terpreted to  mean  not  only  that  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Bible  as  a  part  of  the  required 
curriculum  in  the  public  schools  of  Illinois 
is  forbidden,  but  also  that  any  teaching  of 
the  Bible  in  any  way  in  those  schools  dur- 
ing school  hours  is  forbidden,  even  though 
such  teaching  be  desired  by  Protestant 
parents  for  their  children  and  be  given  by 
teachers  designated  by  those  parents. 

This  interpretation  seems  to  us  too 
broad.  Protestant  parents  should  not  be 
forbidden  to  have  their  children  instructed 
in  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools  by 
teachers  of  their  own  selection.     Of  course 


84      The  Indispensable  Book 

the  children  of  Roman  Catholic  and  Jewish 
parents  should  not  be  required  to  attend 
such  teaching.  On  the  contrary  they 
should  be  left  equally  free  to  provide  in 
the  same  way  for  whatever  religious  teach- 
ing they  wish  their  children  to  have. 

As  the  priests  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  have  taken  the  leading  part  in 
securing  the  decisions  referred  to  and  in 
putting  upon  them  the  too  broad  interpre- 
tation above  mentioned,  it  will  not  be 
amiss  for  the  American  people  to  recall 
the  incontrovertible  statement  of  Lord 
Macaulay  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  "  His- 
tory of  England  "  concerning  the  influence 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  in  this  regard : 

"  From  the  time  when  the  barbarians 
overran  the  Western  Empire  to  the  time  of 
the  revival  of  letters,  the  influence  of  the 
Churcti  of  Rome  had  been  generally 
favourable  to  science,  to  civilization,  to 
good  government.  But  during  the  last 
three  centuries,  to  stunt  the  growth  of  the 


In  the  Schools  85 

human  mind  has  been  her  chief  object. 
Throughout  Christendom,  whatever  ad- 
vance has  been  made  in  knowledge,  in 
freedom,  in  wealth,  and  in  the  arts  of  life, 
has  been  made  in  spite  of  her,  and  has 
everywhere  been  in  inverse  proportion  to 
her  power.  The  loveliest  and  most  fertile 
provinces  of  Europe  have,  under  her  rule, 
been  sunk  in  poverty,  in  political  servi- 
tude, and  in  intellectual  torpor,  while 
Protestant  countries,  once  proverbial  for 
sterility  and  barbarism,  have  been  turned 
by  skill  and  industry  into  gardens,  and 
can  boast  of  a  long  list  of  heroes  and 
statesmen,  philosophers  and  poets.  Who- 
ever, knowing  what  Italy  and  Scotland 
naturally  are,  and  what,  four  hundred 
years  ago,  they  actually  were,  shall  now 
compare  the  country  round  Rome  with  the 
country  round  Edinburgh,  will  be  able  to 
form  some  judgment  as  to  the  tendency  of 
papal  domination.  The  descent  of  Spain, 
once   the  first  among  the  monarchies,  to 


86      The  Indispensable  Book 

the  lowest  depths  of  degradation,  the 
elevation  of  Holland,  in  spite  of  many 
natural  disadvantages,  to  a  position  such 
as  no  commonwealth  so  small  has  ever 
reached,  teach  the  same  lesson.  Whoever 
passes  in  Germany  from  a  Roman  Catholic 
to  a  Protestant  principality,  in  Switzerland 
from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a  Protestant 
canton,  in  Ireland  from  a  Roman  Catholic 
to  a  Protestant  county,  finds  that  he  has 
passed  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  grade  of 
civilization.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic  the  same  law  prevails.  The 
Protestants  of  the  United  States  have  left 
far  behind  them  the  Roman  Catholics  of 
Mexico,  Peru  and  Brazil.  The  Roman 
Catholics  of  Lower  Canada  remain  inert, 
while  the  whole  continent  round  them  is 
in  a  ferment  with  Protestant  activity  and 
enterprise.  The  French  have  doubtless 
shown  an  energy  and  intelligence  which, 
even  when  misdirected,  have  justly  entitled 
them  to  be  called  a  great  people.     But  this 


In  the  Schools  87 

apparent  exception,  when  examined,  will 
be  found  to  confirm  the  rule,  for  in  no 
country  that  is  called  Roman  Catholic  has 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  during  several 
generations,  possessed  so  little  authority 
as  in  France." 

Happily  many  of  the  people  whom  the 
priests  have  heretofore  dominated  are  be- 
ginning to  observe  for  themselves  the 
difference  thus  clearly  pointed  out  by 
Macaulay — and  not  only  by  him,  but 
by  Gladstone,  by  Dickens,  and  by  such 
Roman  Catholic  writers  as  Mr.  Michael 
McCarthy — between  the  effects  of  Ro- 
manism and  Protestantism  respectively 
on  human  intelligence  and  civilization, 
and  to  draw  the  inevitable  inference 
that  there  is  something  radically  wrong 
with  the  system  in  which  they  have 
been  reared,  and  that,  as  the  very  exist- 
ence of  our  free  institutions  depends  upon 
the  intelligence  and  moral  character  of  our 
citizens,  it  is  nothing  but  national  suicide 


88      The  Indispensable  Book 

to  shut  out  from  the  training  of  our  future 
citizens  the  one  book  which  has  shown  it- 
self to  be  the  greatest  of  all  promoters  both 
of  intelligence  and  moral  character.  There 
are  not  a  few  cheering  signs  that  a  steadily 
increasing  number  of  our  more  intelligent 
Roman  Catholic  people  in  America  will 
refuse  to  follow  the  priests  in  their  antag- 
onism to  Bible  teaching  as  a  discipline 
for  prospective  citizens. 

But  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  and 
their  followers  are  not  the  only  opponents 
of  religious  training  in  connection  with  the 
common  schools.  The  Jewish  rabbis  of 
America  at  their  annual  conference  (19 lo) 
at  Charlevoix,  Michigan,  protested  against 
the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools 
as  a  grievous  wrong,  declaring  that  this 
is  not  a  Christian  country.  That  it  is  a 
Christian  country  in  a  general  sense  is 
clearly  shown  by  the  fact  that  it  has  ever 
been  a  haven  of  refuge  for  the  persecuted 
Jews.     But  the  Jewish  rabbis,  though  en- 


In  the  Schools  89 

joying  in  this  Christian  land  full  civil 
and  religious  liberty,  have  shut  their  eyes 
to  the  fact  stated  by  the  most  illustrious 
modern  member  of  their  race,  that  "all 
nations  that  refuse  the  Cross  wither  "  and 
have  apparently  joined  forces  with  the 
infidels  and  the  Roman  Catholic  priests 
in  their  war  against  any  kind  of  Bible 
teaching  in  connection  with  our  common 
schools. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  propo- 
sition to  exclude  the  Bible  from  the  schools 
absolutely  is  an  impracticable  one,  for,  even 
were  all  the  courts  of  the  land  to  forbid  the 
direct  use  of  it,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  it 
would  still  remain.  How  can  the  writings 
which  permeate  all  modern  literature  be 
excluded  from  a  real  education?  How  can 
the  book  which  is  interwoven  with  all  the 
noblest  prose  and  poetry  in  our  language 
be  torn  out  without  destroying  the  whole 
fabric  of  our  literature  and  with  it  the 
means  of  our  best  intellectual  culture?    To 


go      The  Indispensable  Book 

a  Jewish  gentleman  who  remarked  that  he 
did  not  want  his  children  to  read  the  New 
Testament  in  the  public  schools  a  better 
informed  citizen  said  with  truth  :  "  Then 
you  must  throw  out  Shakespeare,  Milton 
and  Carlyle,  Wordsworth,  Browning  and 
Tennyson,  Whittier,  Longfellow  and 
Holmes, — in  short,  all  the  greatest  poets 
and  essayists  who  have  used  the  English 
tongue."  And  what  can  the  schools  do  in 
the  departments  of  art,  fiction,  philosophy, 
and  ethics  without  giving  their  pupils  a 
knowledge  of  the  Bible?  How  can  stu- 
dents without  such  knowledge  understand 
the  Biblical  allusions,  images  and  ideas 
with  which  the  best  treatises  on  all  these 
subjects  abound  ?  It  is  not  a  question  of 
sectarianism.  It  is  a  question  of  general 
intelligence. 

An  attempt  was  recently  made  to  exclude 
instruction  in  the  Bible  from  the  University 
College  of  Toronto  on  the  ground  that  the 
charter  of  the  institution  forbids  the  teach- 


In  the  Schools  91 

ing  of  theology  and  that  any  interpretation 
or  discussion  of  Biblical  passages  in  the 
class  rooms  was  a  violation  of  this  charter. 
The  governors  of  the  University,  after 
careful  consideration  of  the  complaint  by 
a  committee  of  their  own  number,  made 
this  answer :  "  Many  of  the  subjects  as- 
signed to  University  College  could  not  be 
fully  and  properly  taught  without  the  use 
of  the  Bible — notably  Oriental  languages, 
ethics,  ancient  history,  and  Greek  require 
the  assistance  of  the  Bible  for  their  full 
and  proper  appreciation.  To  exclude  all 
discussion  of  the  Bible  and  the  literary, 
historical,  linguistic  and  ethical  sides 
thereof,  whether  in  the  Hebrew,  Greek, 
English  or  other  version,  would  be  to  ex- 
clude from  the  arts  course  of  the  college 
an  important  literary  work,  an  important 
help  to  the  study  of  languages,  and  the 
greatest  code  of  ethics  known  to  the  world. 
Your  committee  begs  further  to  report 
that,   in   its   opinion,  discussions    of    the 


92      The  Indispensable  Book 

books  and  narratives  of  the  Bible  in  the 
study  of  literature,  ancient  history,  Oriental 
languages  and  Greek  may  take  place 
without  entering  upon  the  domain  of 
theology,  contrary  to  the  statute." 

But  this  diffused  and  pervasive  presence 
of  the  Bible  in  all  our  literature,  which  can 
never  be  got  rid  of — this  general  influence 
of  it  in  liberal  education — while  of  priceless 
value  to  culture,  is  not  sufficient.  In  order 
that  it  may  effectually  mould  the  moral 
character  of  our  future  citizens,  it  must  be 
studied  directly,  regularly,  continuously, 
under  the  direction  of  sympathetic  living 
teachers.  The  number  of  schools  in 
which  this  is  done  has  diminished  rapidly 
in  the  last  half  century,  and  the  result  is 
seen  in  the  enormous  increase  of  crime  in 
the  same  period.  The  Hon.  Whitelaw 
Reid,  our  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain, 
is  quoted  as  saying  that  in  1850  there  was 
in  this  country  only  one  criminal  to  every 
3,422  of  the  population,  but  that  now  there 


In  the  Schools  93 

is  one  criminal  to  every  300 — surely  one 
of  the  most  startling  and  significant  facts 
ever  brought  to  the  attention  of  a  people. 
He  adds  that  **  in  Austria,  since  religious 
teaching  was  abolished  in  the  day-schools, 
crime  has  increased  seventy-five  per  cent." 
The  best  showing  among  all  the  nations 
seems  to  be  made  by  Great  Britain.  Mr. 
Reid  states  the  reason  and  also  the  lesson 
to  be  drawn  by  our  own  people :  "  The 
British  schools  turn  out  pupils  well 
grounded  in  Christianity,  and  America 
might  well  follow  her  example."  Judge 
Grosscup  of  Chicago  sees  the  same  defect, 
utters  the  same  warning,  and  gives  the 
same  counsel :  **  The  only  blot  on  the 
American  public  schools  is  the  exclusion 
of  spirituality  as  one  of  the  great  facts  of 
the  world.  The  law  admits  Darwin,  ad- 
mits science,  and  admits  all  facts  except 
the  supreme  fact  that  religion  is  the  funda- 
mental influence  in  all  movements  of  man- 
kind.    As  long  as  America  turns  its  back 


94      The  Indispensable  Book 

on  religion  and  the  existence  of  God— the 
perfect  message  given  by  Jesus  Christ — it 
is  excluding  the  most  powerful  influence 
for  good,  both  spiritual  and  civil,  that  the 
world  has  at  its  command." 

We  have  indicated  above  our  own  belief 
that  we  can  teach  the  Bible  in  connection 
with  the  public  schools  without  violating 
our  national  principle  of  religious  liberty 
and  the  separation  of  church  and  state. 
Though  Jews,  Roman  Catholics,  and  un- 
believers object  to  the  teaching  of  it  to 
their  children  in  the  schools  which  are 
supported  by  taxes  levied  upon  all  the 
people,  and  though  their  objection  must 
be  sustained,  we  can  without  oppressing 
the  consciences  of  this  minority  of  our 
citizens  teach  it  to  the  children  of  the 
evangelical  Christian  majority. 

Some,  indeed,  despairing  of  any  solution 
of  the  problem  as  to  the  public  schools, 
insist  that  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  fall 
back  on  the  old  plan  of  private  schools 


In  the  Schools  95 

and  church  schools  which  for  so  long  a 
period  and  in  so  large  a  measure  did  yield 
the  desired  results  in  character  and  con- 
duct, and  to  patronize  them  in  preference 
to  the  public  schools.  We  trust  that,  as 
things  now  stand,  this  will  be  done  wher- 
ever possible.  Happy  the  children  whose 
parents  can  send  them  to  schools  in  the 
curricula  of  which  the  Bible  is  taught 
freely  and  fully.  But  to  establish,  equip 
and  maintain  a  sufficient  number  of  such 
schools  to  meet  the  requirements  of  all 
the  Protestant  children  of  the  country 
seems  to  us  to  be  out  of  the  question. 
Under  present  conditions  they  cannot 
hope  to  compete  successfully  with  the 
public  free  schools  on  the  scale  required. 
Others,  therefore,  claim  that  the  Prot- 
estant majority,  who  brought  the  Bible  to 
this  land  and  under  its  teachings  subdued 
the  wilderness  and  developed  our  institu- 
tions and  made  our  country  what  it  is, 
have  at  least  the  same  right  to  say  what 


96      The  Indispensable  Book 

their  children  shall  be  taught  as  the  non- 
Protestant  minority  have  to  say  what  theirs 
shall  be  taught,  and  that  to  allow  this 
minority  of  Jews,  Roman  Catholics  and 
infidels,  who  have  been  freely  admitted  to 
all  the  privileges  purchased  by  the  blood 
of  our  Protestant  sires,  to  dictate  to  us 
what  shall  or  shall  not  be  taught  to  Prot- 
estant children  in  connection  with  their 
general  education  is  an  intolerable  travesty 
on  liberty.  This  party  therefore  says — We 
will  have  the  Bible  taught  to  our  children 
in  connection  with  the  day-schools,  but 
we  will  oppress  no  man's  conscience.  The 
children  of  Jews,  Roman  Catholics  and 
infidels  shall  not  be  required  to  attend  the 
religious  instruction  provided  for  the 
children  of  the  Protestant  majority.  These 
anti-Biblical  elements  of  our  population 
shall  be  free  to  provide  whatever  instruc- 
tion in  religion  for  their  children  they  may 
desire  and  at  the  hands  of  whatever  teach- 
ers they  may  choose.     But  they  shall  not 


In  the  Schools  97 

prevent  our  doing  the  same  for  our  chil- 
dren and  doing  it  in  the  most  effective 
way,  viz.,  in  connection  with  our  day- 
schools. 

Why  cannot  the  children  of  Protestants, 
Roman  Catholics  and  Jews  be  gathered 
separately  at  the  school  for  a  half  hour 
every  day  for  religious  instruction,  to  be 
given  by  such  teachers  or  ministers  as  the 
parents  may  designate  ?  An  equally  unob- 
jectionable method,  though  one  that  would 
probably  be  less  effective,  is  the  one  said 
to  have  been  recently  proposed  by  the 
Protestant  ministers  in  Charleston,  S.  C, 
viz.,  that  instead  of  any  religious  instruc- 
tion at  the  school  itself  the  pupils  should 
gather  at  their  several  churches  for  two 
hours  of  their  school  time  on  specified 
days  of  the  week,  say  from  eleven  o'clock 
till  one,  and  there  be  taught  by  their  own 
ministers  or  other  teachers  approved  by 
their  parents. 

The  special  object  of  this  discussion, 


98      The  Indispensable  Book 

however,  is  not  to  solve  the  question  as  to 
the  best  method  of  reintroducing  the  Bible 
into  our  systems  of  education,  but  to  re- 
mind our  people  of  the  necessity  of  doing 
it.  When  once  they  see  that  the  inevi- 
table result  of  its  exclusion  is  the  intellec- 
tual impoverishment  of  their  children,  the 
weakening  of  their  attachment  to  our  re- 
publican ideals,  and  the  failure  to  develop 
a  sound  and  controlling  moral  character, 
they  will  not  be  long  in  solving  the  mere 
problem  of  method. 

Even  Professor  Huxley,  bitterly  preju- 
diced though  he  was  against  the  Bible, 
said :  "  I  have  always  been  strongly  in  fa- 
vour of  secular  education  without  theology, 
but  I  must  confess  that  I  have  been  no 
less  seriously  perplexed  to  know  by  what 
practical  measures  the  religious  feeling, 
which  is  the  essential  basis  of  moral  con- 
duct, is  to  be  kept  up  in  the  present  utterly 
chaotic  state  of  opinion  on  these  matters 
without  the  use  of  the  Bible." 


VI 

THE  BIBLE  AND  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

"A  ■  ^HIS  collection  of  books,"  says 
I  Theodore  Parker,  "has  taken 
such  a  hold  on  the  world  as  has 
no  other.  The  literature  of  Greece,  which 
goes  up  like  incense  from  that  land  of 
temples  and  heroic  deeds,  has  not  half  the 
influence  of  this  book  from  a  nation  alike 
despised  in  ancient  and  modern  times.  In 
all  the  temples  of  Christendom  is  its  voice 
lifted  up,  week  by  week.  The  sun  never 
sets  on  its  gleaming  page.  It  goes  equally 
to  the  cottage  of  the  plain  man  and  the 
palace  of  the  king.  It  is  woven  into  the 
literature  of  the  scholar,  and  it  colours  the 
talk  of  the  street.  ...  It  blesses  us 
when  we  are  born ;  gives  names  to  half 
Christendom ;  rejoices  with  us ;  has  sym- 
pathy  for    our   mourning ;    tempers    our 

99 


loo    The  Indispensable  Book 

grief  to  finer  issues.  It  is  the  better  part 
of  our  sermons.  It  lifts  man  above  him- 
self ;  our  best  of  uttered  prayers  are  in  its 
storied  speech,  wherewith  our  fathers  and 
the  patriarchs  prayed.  The  timid  man, 
about  awaking  from  this  dream  of  life, 
looks  through  the  glass  of  Scripture,  and 
his  eye  grows  bright ;  he  does  not  fear  to 
stand  alone,  to  tread  the  way  unknown 
and  distant,  to  take  the  death-angel  by  the 
hand,  and  bid  farewell  to  wife,  and  babes, 
and  home.  .  .  .  Some  thousand  fa- 
mous writers  come  up  in  this  century,  to 
be  forgotten  in  the  next.  But  the  silver 
cord  of  the  Bible  is  not  loosed,  nor  its 
golden  bowl  broken,  as  Time  chronicles  his 
tens  of  centuries  passed  by.  Has  the  hu- 
man race  gone  mad  ?  .  »  .  It  is  only 
a  heart  that  can  speak,  deep  and  true,  to 
a  heart ;  a  mind  to  a  mind ;  a  soul  to  a 
soul ;  wisdom  to  the  wise,  and  religion  to 
the  pious.  There  must  then  be  in  the 
Bible  mind,  heart,  and  soul,  wisdom  and 


The  Bible  and  Spiritual  Life  i  o  i 

religion.  Were  it  otherwise,  how  could 
millions  find  it  their  lawgiver,  friend,  and 
prophet?"  The  Bible,  says  Thomas  Car- 
lyle,  is  "  the  one  Book  wherein,  for  thou- 
sands of  years,  the  spirit  of  man  has  found 
light  and  nourishment,  and  the  response 
to  whatever  was  deepest  in  his  heart." 
William  E.  Gladstone  says :  "  If  I  am 
asked  to  name  the  one  comfort  in  sorrow, 
the  safe  rule  of  conduct,  the  true  guide  of 
life,  I  must  point  to  what  in  the  words  of  a 
popular  hymn  is  called  'The  old,  old 
story,'  told  in  an  old,  old  Book,  which  is 
God's  best  and  richest  gift  to  mankind." 
Coleridge  says,  "  I  know  the  Bible  is  in- 
spired because  it  finds  me  at  greater 
depths  of  my  being  than  any  other  book ; " 
and  Dwight  L.  Moody  more  succinctly,  **  I 
know  the  Bible  is  inspired  because  it  in- 
spires me."  We  know  that  it  is  the  Word 
of  God  because  it  speaks  to  our  hearts. 
These  statements  bring  us  to  our  last 
point. 


102    The  Indispensable  Book 

The  Bible  is  necessary  to  our  spiritual 
life.  This  is  the  most  familiar  of  all  the  as- 
pects of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  therefore, 
though  it  is  far  the  most  important,  it  does 
not  need  to  be  fully  stated  here.  We  have 
seen,  when  speaking  of  the  relation  of  the 
Bible  to  morals  and  benevolence,  that  it 
teaches  men  justice,  honesty,  truthfulness, 
purity,  temperance,  love,  kindness  and 
gendeness.  But  other  books  have  done 
that  in  a  measure  ;  yet  they  have  not  been 
able  to  give  spiritual  life.  There  is  no 
vital  power  in  mere  moral  precepts.  They 
point  out  what  is  right  but  they  do  not 
give  the  ability  to  do  it.  A  Japanese 
student,  writing  recently  in  the  Japan 
Weekly  Mail,  says :  **  Of  all  our  studies 
ethics  is  the  most  tedious.  Our  teachers 
tell  us  we  must  be  honest,  truthful  and 
virtuous,  all  of  which  we  know  very  well, 
but  they  impart  to  us  no  moral  power  to 
do  these  things."  Now  the  religion  of  the 
Bible    is  more  than  a  system  of  morals. 


The  Bible  and  Spiritual  Life  1 03 

The  essential  difference  between  it  and 
other  systems  is  that  they  have  always 
lacked  **  the  vitality  of  conscience  touched 
by  the  Spirit  of  God."  The  Bible  pos- 
sesses the  unique  power  of  **  enabling  men 
to  attain  what  it  has  taught  them  to  prize 
and  desire."  For,  in  addition  to  the  ex- 
ternal rule,  there  is  "  the  inward  work  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  bearing  witness  by  and 
with  the  word  in  our  hearts."  Hence  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  says  ^ 
that  **  the  word  of  God  is  quick  and  pow- 
erful," that  is,  living  and  active.  It  is  not 
a  dead  book  but  a  living  word,  operative, 
inworking,  power-producing.  "  It  is  the 
glory  of  Christianity  that  it  not  only 
teaches  what  is  good  and  right,  but  has  a 
power  in  it  to  cause  men  to  love  and  prac- 
tice that  good  and  right.  The  morality 
of  Paganism  was  tentative,  where  Chris- 
tianity is  authoritative — dim  where  Chris- 
tianity is  bright — it  gives  only  a  rule  where 

1  Heb.  iv.  12. 


104    The  Indispensable  Book 

Christianity  supplies  a  principle.  It  lacked 
sanction,  it  wanted  ardour,  intensity ;  it 
could  not  furnish  a  faultless  example ;  it 
gave  no  sufficient  motive  under  tempta- 
tion, no  support  under  trials ;  above  all, 
there  was  no  causative  power  to  make  men 
love  holiness  or  the  very  morality  it  taught. 
It  could  not  impart  the  new  birth"  The 
Bible,  on  the  other  hand,  *'  is  alive,"  as 
Chinese  Gordon  said.  It  possesses  and 
communicates  life.  Its  ideas  are  not 
merely  perceived  but  apperceived.  *'  The 
Gospel  is  educative  because  its  Teacher 
put  its  truth  before  men  in  a  form  to  be 
apperceived,  to  become,  not  a  part  of  a 
man's  mental  store,  but  a  part  of  his  men- 
tal life.  The  words  of  Plato  are  a  priceless 
treasure,  but  the  words  of  Jesus  are  spirit 
and  life."  ^ 

This  is  life  eternal  to  know  the  only  true 
God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  He  has  sent ;  ^ 

1  «*  Educational  Evangelism,"   Charles    E.  McKinley,  p. 
1 20.  'John  xvii.  3. 


The  Bible  and  Spiritual  Life  105 

and  this  knowledge  the  Bible  alone  gives. 
Prof.  Wm.  James,  in  his  recent  work  on 
"The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience," 
says  that  under  all  the  discrepancies  of 
creeds  there  is  a  common  nucleus  to  which 
they  bear  their  testimony  unanimously ; 
that,  however  widely  the  formulas  of  the 
various  religions  may  differ,  there  is  a  cer- 
tain uniform  deliverance  in  which  religions 
all  appear  to  meet.  **  It  consists  of  two 
parts :  i.  An  uneasiness ;  and  2.  Its 
solution.  I.  The  uneasiness  reduced  to 
its  simplest  terms  is  a  sense  that  there  is 
something  wrong  about  us  as  we  naturally 
stand.  2.  The  solution  is  that  we  are 
saved  from  the  wrongness  by  making 
proper  connection  with  the  higher  powers." 
That  is  as  far  as  other  religions  can  take 
us.  But  is  that  a  real  *' solution"  which 
does  not  answer  the  question,  How  can  we 
make  proper  connection  with  the  higher 
powders?  To  that  question  the  Bible,  and 
the  Bible  alone,  gives  adequate  answer. 


io6    The  Indispensable  Book 

It  shows  us  that  God  loves  us  and  that  He 
has  made  provision  for  the  pardon  of  our 
guilt  through  the  atonement  of  His  Son 
for  sin,  and  it  draws  us  to  Him  in  penitence 
and  faith.  Here  is  the  real  secret  of  the 
power  of  this  book.  Not  its  incomparable 
wealth  of  literature,  nor  its  incomparable 
wealth  of  moral  teaching,  but  its  Evangel 
— its  revelation  of  a  Redeemer — the  Lamb 
of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of 
the  world.  That  meets  the  deepest  need 
of  the  human  soul.  "  And  I,  if  I  be 
lifted  upy^  said  Jesus,  ** will  draw  all  men 
unto  Me."  It  is  thus  the  means  of  our  re- 
generation. The  Apostle  Peter  says  ^  we 
are  "born  again,  not  of  corruptible  seed, 
but  of  incorruptible,  by  the  word  of  God, 
which  liveth  and  abideth  forever."  And 
not  only  born,  but  also  nourished ;  for  the 
same  apostle  elsewhere^  calls  the  word 
milk,  and  exhorts  us,  as  new-born  babes, 
to  grow  thereby.     It  is  therefore  not  only 

1  I  Peter  i.  23.  «  i  Peter  ii.  2. 


The  Bible  and  Spiritual  Life  107 

the  means  of  regeneration  but  of  sanctifi- 
cation  as  well.  The  Apostle  Paul  com- 
mends the  elders  of  Ephesus  '*  to  God  and 
the  word  of  His  grace,  which  is  able  to 
build  you  up  and  to  give  you  an  inherit- 
ance among  all  them  that  are  sanctified."  ^ 
It  substitutes  for  the  cold  principle  of 
utility  or  expediency  as  a  reason  for  right 
conduct  the  vital  and  effectual  motive  of 
gratitude  and  love  to  our  Redeemer. 

As  W.  E.  H.  Lecky  says :  **  It  was 
reserved  for  Christianity  to  present  to  the 
world  an  ideal  character  which,  through  all 
the  changes  of  eighteen  centuries,  has  in- 
spired the  hearts  of  men  with  an  impas- 
sioned love  ;  has  shown  itself  capable  of 
acting  on  all  ages,  nations,  temperaments 
and  conditions ;  has  been  not  only  the 
highest  pattern  of  virtue,  but  the  strongest 
incentive  to  its  practice  ;  and  has  exercised 
so  deep  an  influence  that  it  may  be  truly 
said  that  the  simple  record  of  three  short 

1  Acts  XX.  32, 


io8    The  Indispensable  Book 

years  of  active  life  has  done  more  to  re- 
generate and  soften  mankind  than  all  the 
disquisitions  of  philosophers  and  all  the 
exhortations  of  moralists."  Hence  the 
virile  words  of  Browning  : 

**  I  say,  the  acknowledgment  of  God  in  Christ 
Accepted  by  thy  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  and  out  of  it, 
And  has  so  far  advanced  thee  to  be  wise." 

And  so  in  every  age  weary  men  who  have 
traversed  all  the  continents  of  philosophy 
and  sounded  all  the  seas  of  speculation 
come  back 

*'  To  find  that  all  the  sages  said 
Is  in  the  Book  our  mothers  read." 

When  Dean  Stanley  was  visiting  Hein- 
rich  Ew^ald,  the  greatest  genius  in  the  long 
line  of  German  critics,  Ewald  took  up  a 
copy  of  the  New  Testament  and  said  : 
"  All  the  wisdom  of  the  world  is  in  this 
little  book."     The  Bible  alone  can  make 


The  Bible  and  Spiritual  Life  1 09 

men  "  wise  unto  salvation."  ^  When  Sir 
Walter  Scott  lay  dying  at  Abbotsford,  he 
expressed  a  wish  that  his  son-in-law  should 
read  to  him,  and  when  Lockhart  asked 
from  what  book,  he  said  :  "  Need  you  ask  ? 
There  is  but  one."  Lockhart  read  to  him 
the  fourteenth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  of 
John,  and  it  cheered  and  comforted  Scott 
as  it  has  cheered  and  comforted  thousands 
of  others  when  approaching  the  end  of 
earthly  life.  There  is  indeed  **  but  one 
book  "  that  can  give  to  dying  men  eternal 
life. 

For  all  these  reasons  the  Bible  is  The 
Indispensable  Book.  Therefore,  as  we 
value  the  culture  and  character  of  our  peo- 
ple, as  we  value  their  civil  liberty  and  their 
material  prosperity,  as  we  value  their 
deliverance  from  the  guilt  and  power  and 
pollution  of  sin,  as  we  value  their  consecra- 
tion to  God  in  righteousness,  as  we  value 
their  peace  in  death  and  their  blessedness 

1  2  Tim.  iii.  15. 


no    The  Indispensable  Book 

in  eternity,  let  us  labour  in  season  and  out 
of  season  to  saturate  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  our  whole  people  with  the  uplifting  and 
refining  and  saving  word  of  God. 


THE  END 


INDEX 

Abbot,  Lyman,  on  our  debt  to  the  Bible  for  the  principles 

of  our  government,  59. 
Addison,  Joseph,  on  the  superiority  of  the  Psalms  to  Horace 

and  Pindar,  31. 
America,  founded  by  men  of  God,  16. 

Arnold,  Edwin,  owes  everything  as  a  writer  to  the  Bible,  33. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  on  the  Bible  a  necessity,  title  page. 
Authorized  Version,  its  character  and  influence,  24. 

Bacon,  Francis,  his  acquaintance  with  the  Bible,  28 ;  on 
the  Bible  as  the  greatest  promoter  of  the  public  good,  64. 

Baldwin,  C.  S.,  on  the  Bible  as  a  model  for  writers,  36. 

Balfour,  Arthur  J,,  on  moralists  as  parasites  of  Christi- 
anity, 74. 

Beveridge,  Albert  J.,  on  "  The  Bible  as  Good  Reading,"  37-40. 

Bible,  as  literature  of  knowledge,  21 ;  as  literature  of  power, 
22;  necessary  to  intellectual  culture,  19-50 ;  ignorance 
of,  shown  by  college  students,  41-45  ;  necessary  to  our 
national  ideals,  51-63;  necessary  to  sound  and  perma- 
nent morality  and  benevolence,  64-77  >  evils  falsely 
ascribed  to,  68 ;  picture  of  a  community  in  which  it  was 
fully  obeyed,  71  ;  study  of  in  connection  with  the 
public  schools,  80-98 ;  necessary  to  spiritual  life,  99-108. 

Bismarck,  on  the  necessity  of  faiih  in  a  revealed  religion,  73. 

Brace,  Charles  Loring,  "  Gesta  Christi,"  66. 

Brewer,  David  J.,  on  America  as  the  product  of  the  Bible,  51. 

Browning,  his  use  of  Scripture,  28 ;  on  God  in  Christ  the 
solution  of  all  things,  108. 

Bryan,  William  Jennings,  on  proof  of  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
65. 

Burke,  Edmund,  his  use  of  Isaiah  as  an  intellectual  tonic,  30. 

«  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,"  on  the 

preeminence  of  Bible  lyrics,  31. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  the  Bible  and  modern  progress,  62; 

on  the  Bible  as  the  one  answer  to  the  deepest  human 

need,  loi. 

Ill 


112 


Index 


Coleridge,  on  the  creative  literary  influence  of  the  Bible,  27 ; 
on  the  vigour  of  its  style,  29 ;  on  the  profundity  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  32 ;  on  the  Beatitudes,  32 ;  on 
the  Bible  as  a  promoter  of  purity  in  style,  34 ;  on  the 
Bible  as  inspired,  10 1. 

Cook,  A.  S.,  on  "  The  Authorized  Version  and  Its  Influ- 
ence," 34. 

Cuyler,  Theodore  L.,  on  the  value  of  the  Bible  for  mental 
discipline,  22. 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  on  the  value  of  the  Bible  to  journal- 
ists, 35. 

DeQuincey,  on  literature  of  knowledge  and  literature  of 
power,  19. 

Dickens,  on  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son,  32. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  on  the  originality  of  the  Bible, 

Ewald,  Heinrich,  on  the  New  Testament  as  containing  all 
the  wisdom  of  the  world,  108. 

Faber,  F,  W.,  on   the   charm  and  power  of  the  English 

Bible,  25-27. 
Fairbairn,  Principal,  on  the  Old  Testament  and  the  poor,  55. 
Froude,  J.  A.,  on  the  preeminence  of  the  Book  of  Job  as 

poetry,  32. 

Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  on  the  Bible  and  freedom,  62. 
Gladstone,  on  the  Gospel  as  God's  best  gift  to  mankind,  loi. 
Gould,  F.  G.,  on  the  Bible  as  an  imaginative  reservoir  for 

the  common  people,  47. 
Grant,  U.  S.,  on  the  Bible  as  the  guarantee  of  our  liberties,  61. 
Green,  John   Richard,  on   the  Enghsh  of  the  Bible,  25  ;  on 

the  motive  of  the  settlers  of  America,  16, 
Grosscup,  Judge,  on  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  day  schools, 

93- 

Hallam,  on  the  perfection  of  the  English  of  the  Bible,  ^iZ- 

Hawthorne,  his  debt  to  the  Bible,  29. 

Hebrew  republic  ordained  of  God,  Hebrew  monarchy 
substituted  by  the  people,  56-58. 

Huxley,  on  the  influence  of  the  English  Bible,  32 ;  on  the 
Bible  as  the  charter  of  popular  rights,  6r  ;  on  the 
necessity  of  religious  teaching  in  day  schools,  98. 


Index  113 


Jackson,  Andrew,  on  the  Bible  as  the  rock  on  which  the 
republic  rests,  61. 

James,  William,  on  the  universal  uneasiness  and  its  solu- 
tion, 105. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  on  the  Bible  as  a  promoter  of  morals,  77. 

Jews,  oppose  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  in  public  schools,  88^ 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  on  the  regenerating  power  of  the  char- 
acter of  Christ,  107. 
Lewes,  G.  H.,  on  the  masterly  plainness  of  Genesis,  36. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,on  the  necessity  of  the  Bible  to  civiUzation,  74. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  his  use  of  Scripture,  29 ;  his  tribute  to 
the  English  Bible,  40;  on  the  influence  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  84-88, 

Machen,  Mrs.  M.  G.,  on  "  Bible  Study  in  Relation  to  Modern 
Literature,"  37. 

McDonogh  Trust,  violation  of  by  New  Orleans,  79. 

Milton,  "  Paradise  Lost,"  19;  his  works  saturated  with  Scrip- 
ture, 28;  his  estimate  of  the  songs  and  orations  of  the 
Bible,  29. 

Moody,  D.  L.,  on  the  Bible  as  inspired,  10 1. 

Moulton,  Richard,  on  the  preeminence  of  the  speeches  of 
Moses,  30. 

New  Orleans,  disgraced  by  violation  of  the  McDonogh 

trust,  80, 
New  York  Post,  on  the  influence  of  the  Bible  in  English 

literature,  23. 

OsLER,  William,  his  style  strongly  influenced  by  the 
Bible,  36. 

Palladium,  of  Troy,  15;  of  America,  16. 

"Paradise  Lost,"  as  literature  of  power,  19. 

Parker,  Theodore,  on  the   permanence   and  power  of  the 

Bible,  99. 
Peabody,  A.  P.,  on  the  Bible  as  the  key  to  the  best  English 

diction,  49. 
Phelps,  William  Lyon,  on  the  ignorance  of  the  Bible  among 

college  students,  45, 
Public  schools,  the  Bible  and,  80-98. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  on  the  necessity  of  religious  teaching  in 
day  schools,  92. 


114  Index 


Renan,  on  the  beauty  of  the  Gospel  of  Luke,  32. 
Republican  form  of  government  first  given  to  the  Hebrews 

by  Moses,  56. 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  a  hindrance  to  civilization,  84-88. 
Roman  Catholic  priests,  their  opposition  to  the  use  of  the 

Bible  in  connection  with  public  schools,  84. 
Ruskin,  his  power  as  a  writer  due  to  early  knowledge  of 

Scripture,  31. 

Saintsbury,  on  the  preeminence  of  the  English  Bible  as 
prose,  34. 

Schurman,  Jacob,  on  the  Bible  as  a  necessity  in  educa- 
tion, 49, 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  "There  is  but  one  book,"  109. 

Shakespeare,  his  use  of  the  Bible,  28. 

Sidney,  Algernon,  his  *•  Discourses  Concerning  Govern- 
ment,"  57. 

Smith,  C.  Alphonso,  on  the  knowledge  of  the  Bible  among 
college  students,  46. 

Spofford,  Librarian,  on  the  power  of  Biblical  English,  34. 

Stanley,  A.  P.,  his  quotation  of  Ewald  on  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 108. 

Straus,  O.  S.,  on  the  Hebrew  origin  of  the  American  gov- 
ernment, 57. 

Tennyson,  his  use  of  the  Bible,  28, 

Thwing,  President,  on  the  ignorance  of  Scripture  evinced 

by  college  students,  41-43. 
Tolstoy,  on  the  impossibility  of  education  without  the  Bible, 

49- 

University  of  Toronto,  refusal  of  to  exclude  the  Bible,  90. 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  on  the  Bible  as  a  necessity  in 
education,  48. 

Wayland,  President,  on  the  moral  and  religious  influence 
of  the  Bible,  64. 

Webster,  Daniel,  on  the  Bible  as  the  guarantee  of  our  pros- 
perity, 17  ;  his  eloquence  due  to  his  early  knowledge 
of  Scripture,  30;  his  use  of  Scripture  as  an  intellectual 
tonic,  30. 

Wordsworth,  his  estimate  of  the  Bible  as  literature,  29. 

Work,  E.  W.,  on  the  ignorance  of  the  Bible  among  college 
students,  45. 


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